Persecution
by Tom Tomorrow
Summary: "Ten-oh-oh. I've got a door that won't open." Davidson's voice crackles over the comm, a beat of silence follows. Then..."There's a heat signature on the other side." ... ... Extraction Specialist Maggie Sawyer and the rest of her team, stumble upon something with horrific implications as they carry out a routine mission. AU
1. Chapter 1

Note: Definitely alternate universe. Also has two parts. This was a prompt given to me by a reader. Any other prompts you want to see can be put in the reviews!

… .,. 

At some point over the years, Maggie Sawyer had lost count of the number of CADMUS bases they had raided.

The Mission Prerogative, a code they swore by, had always been to infiltrate the bases, take any stragglers into custody, acquire all relevant intel, before tagging them for destruction.

Nothing big, not the huge facilities that'd been left to the far more equipped, comprehensive strike teams. Just the smaller, more remote bases that weren't immediately high risk, but nonetheless deemed necessary to eliminate after it had been discovered the once glorified business corporation had really only been a front for a significant share of seedy, fraudulent, cult-like, terrorist activity.

Most times, the remote facilities were empty, close to it, or filled with the less soldier types and more seedier academic types, who were eager to surrender, but unwilling to give any credible information.

Regardless, it was an upgrade, filling her and the rest of the five-person team with a satisfaction unlike they'd ever experienced in their previous occupations. Certainly different from Gotham, where her days as a beat cop always seemed to be on loop, never getting better.

This was different.

Repetitive, but different.

Repetitive, but still dangerous.

They still got shot at.

M'gann M'orzz, the team's former field technician was a testament to that. Two bullets to the leg a few raids back and she still hadn't been cleared back for active duty. She'd been replaced with Winn, a DEO liaison, much to some of her team's chagrin, most pointedly, the team's hard-bitten, outspoken leader, Samuel Lane, a former marine with a chip on his shoulder.

Maggie knows that a large degree of her team's antagonism towards Winn likely stems from the, perhaps a little too unhealthy, rivalry between the NCPD and other intelligence organizations, which certainly wasn't helped by Winn's affiliation with one of the most elusive, the DEO. That, coupled with the younger man's status of probationary agent and his lack of field training, meant Winn would likely continue to be on the receiving end of rest of the team's ire, but Alex had actively advocated for him from her position at said DEO, so the former detective had at least tried giving him a chance.

A chance worth given, seeing as he'd downed the entire security system and electricity grid for the side sect facility they'd most recently begun to infiltrate in less than a minute.

"Still no heat signatures, Davidson?"

Lane asks their demolitions expert, a tall, muscular redhead, who's already surveying the entire scene with his wrist electro-grid shield once again.

"Nothing that the scans are picking up. Though there could be floors beneath the sub-basement level. These scanners are only accurate four floors each way."

The man shrugs and Lane nods once, looking somewhere past them, then nods again, expression hardening.

"Okay. Positions."

Maggie backs up half a foot to stand with the team's field medic, Vasquez, as the men fiddle with setting the charge against the steel entrance.

Seconds later a hissing crack sounds, slicing a hole through reinforced steel, and with smooth coordinance, the strike team moves silently through the doors.

The interior swathes itself in darkness, illuminated only by the barest of emergency lighting, courtesy of Winn and as expected, nothing nasty jumps out at them.

Maggie flicks on the flashlight attachment to her service weapon for a clearer look, a suspects nothing that could have jumped at them has been here in a while, a thin layer of dust covering what appears to be a small entrance way.

A few doors here and there. One, that was probably a closet, and another that, according to schematics, led upstairs, another to an electrical room, and one that was more of a sliding system, like that to the entrance of grocery stores, leading to the main area.

It looked completely boring and safe and terribly, terribly empty.

The closet doors are cleared in a matter of seconds, confirming them for what they were and it takes a few more to force the electricity barren sliding door to the main entrance apart.

Lane is the first one in, tightly coiling to the side, to find cover against anything that might be there, but he only gets two steps in before stopping instantly, forcing Maggie, as her position of second in command, to backtrack hastily so she won't run into him.

But her blood runs cold anyway, because she's already seen what he's seen. They all have.

"Holy shit."

Davidson mutters. The only one to voice anything, though Winn is green around the edges.

There were people here, laid out on the floor, sprawled at the desks, hunched in workstations. But they were dead… everyone was dead. Had been for at least a few hours judging by the rigor mortis.

"Vasquez?"

Lane questions thinly, and Vasquez steps out from behind Maggie, already knowing the unspoken command. Gingerly moving toward the closest body, crouching down next to it, the woman snaps on a pair of gloves before beginning a quick pair of gloves as she begins her examination. After, a few moments the culprit is found.

"Cyanide," she states, holding up an empty pill bottle. "They did this to themselves."

Slowly, Lane nods, but the uneasiness is palpable, they'd come in on a lot of things, but never this... The general looks at schematics on the electro grid again.

"Alright, keep moving. Schott, see what you can get off of those computers. Vasquez stay with him."

The two nod and Vasquez moves a body away from what looks to be the main control desk, while Winn pulling out a transference adaptor as he moves to boot up the machine.

"Sawyer, you take the top floors. Davidson, go to the lower levels and make sure it doesn't go deeper. I'll get the levels in between. Just clear the area for now, check the pulse of everyone who doesn't look to be in rigor, so they aren't any more surprises. If you need non-emergent back up, Ten-oh-oh. If you run into trouble you can't handle, Nine-nine-oh. Don't be a hero."

Frowning, Maggie glances around the room again, grinding her teeth together. This was normal protocol for the raids. Subdue the enemy, steal what intel they could find, destroy the base. But… CADMUS themselves had never done the deed for them. She'd heard whispers of some of the higher ups at the bigger facilities doing it. But this one? Seemingly in the middle of nowhere, almost completely off the grid?

It felt different.

It felt wrong.

She acquiesces anyway.

… …. … .. . .. ..

The majority of the next hour yields the same results.

Room after room of office nooks, conference rooms, and storage facilities, that looked like any other mundane normal office building she'd find in National City. A few more bodies of scientists.

And she's clearing the last few rooms of the top floor, when the comm in her ear deviates from the steady pattern of murmured clears and updates of the intel extraction.

"Ten-oh-oh. I've got a door that won't open."

Davidson's voice crackles over the comm.

"Schott, thought your techboy magic unlocked all the doors."

Lane's authoritative tone booms dryly over the feed, more of a statement then a question.

"Uh… All the doors should be unlocked and rewired to the new code I implemented. If it's not, it's probably because it wasn't added to the mainfram-"

"Lane, the electrogrid picked up a heat signature on the other side."

A beat of silence.

"What's your position, Davidson?"

Maggie asks, and at the same time, Lane commands, "Hang back, Davidson, everyone else reroute to his position."

"I… it isn't on the schematics. But it's Sublevel 3, Next to room… 462."

Davidson mutters.

It's easy to see that her earlier presumption of 'normal' office building being quickly debunked as she maneuvers to the basement levels of the facility. Office nooks turn into science labs and decontainment cells. Empty. Empty. All empty. But nothing she's seen in the other facilities.

When she arrives to the room, she's the last one there. Winn's been planted in front of another sophisticated-looking computer, Vasquez, just behind him, scanning an array of packages with fancy chemical names on them, while Lane stands near a large metal paneling, that covers the mass majority of the wall, discussing something with Davidson in low, muttered voices.

"- no movement?"

Lane questions as she moves closer.

"No movement," Davidson confirms, stepping to the side to allow Maggie to join the conversation. "According to the scanners, it's more of a corridor, long and deep, than a room, and the doors are composed of titanium, reinforced steel, lead, and something called andiminium. We don't have charges strong enough to break down that door. Not without leveling some of the structure."

"So the only way is to hack it remotely?"

Maggie questions, taking a closer look. The handle is like that of a vault, but there seem to be automatic fissures locking various parts into place, alluding to something more than just a door.

Lane nods once, his expression still tight, obviously displeased at all the unexpected occurrences that'd had sprouted during what was supposed to be a one and done mission.

"Schott's on it. He confirmed that the tech in this room wasn't on the mainframe. It wasn't on the schematics either."

Maggie nods. That at least, explains why it was so hard to find this room.

"A panic room, maybe? You said there was a heat signature..."

"Yeah. It could be Lillian fucking Luthor herself, if we're lucky. Hell, I'll even take Max Lord at this point. To see the look on their faces if we brought in one of the head honchos-"

Lane cuts Davidson off with a withering glare.

"A life signature was detected. So the person in there is living and breathing. Running hot too, clocked in at hundred and four degrees. So not dead yet, but likely on the way."

Lane relays for her.

Maggie nods.

"I got something," Winn calls out from the laptops, "It's a l-ledger, a rolodex of names, of case files, no… medical files."

"It looks like they were experimenting on people."

Vasquez clarifies, looking over Winn's shoulder at first, Maggie, then Lane.

CADMUS doing human experimentation? That was a vast deviation from the illegal weapons trade, money laundering, dirty politics, xenophobic stance, and the other activity they'd become known for, but she guessed it wasn't too far off mark. There'd been rumors about a genetic engineering sect back in the day, but she'd never heard anything come to fruition of it.

"Volunteers or prisoners?"

Davidson asks hesitantly, knowing that the cult-like personality of CADMUS meant they would quite literally do anything, if anything upstairs was an indication.

Vasquez only shrugs.

"Did it work?"

Lane questions, hand visibly clenching against the pistol in his hand.

"Not according to this, most were deemed experimental failures, killed in action, or… exterminated. Gayle Marsh. Deceased. Imra Ardeen. Deceased. Leslie Willis. Deceased. The list goes on. Wait.. hold on a second. One's still listed as alive. "

An uneasy silence befalls them.

"Male or female? Is there a name?"

"No, just says K-52-L."

Maggie turns back to Davidson, who's suddenly taken a particular interest in examining the heat signature register on his electro grid.

Still no movement.

"Shit. There's a lot of meds listed here. Benzos, methamphetamine, trazodone... that's an antidepressant-," Winn adds almost in afterthought, oblivious to the scrutiny as he scrolls through the chart on the screen monitor. "More than a few antipsychotics, including methotrimeprazine. And… shit, they have phencyclidine listed here too."

"Phencyclidine? What's that?"

Davidson asks, moving back towards the entrance, leafing through some strewn notepads that'd been left in disarray of their infiltration.

"PCP. An intense psychedelic. Puts em through the works. It's as much proof we're gonna get that whatever's on the other side of that door likely wasn't a volunteer."

Vasquez answers for him, continuing to lean over Winn's shoulder, much to his chagrin, apparently clicking to another page of the case file, judging by the way he tries to stop her.

" Jesus ," Maggie murmurs under her breath, rocking backward on her heels as she jerks away from the metal door. "And all of these… drugs. What are they for?"

"Well… they should be killing it," Vasquez states dryly, then seeing their skeptical looks, hastens to explain. "I'm serious. Most of the dosages listed are at least nine times the therapeutic amount given to any average two hundred pound male. And it says here…" she continues, pushing Winn further out the way, "that they're being automatically injected every few hours. Subdermal devices in the… left bicep, upper right quadrant of the torso, and just below the collarbone. This person should be dead."

For a moment, everyone is silent, absorbing the heaviness of those words under the humdrum of electricity and Maggie scrubs at her face, rubbing away at some invisible smoke, dust, grit that still feels as if it's ingrained in her skin.

They all know that whatever's on the side of the door clearly isn't dead.

"So what? Super soldiers?"

Maggie wonders aloud. At the very least super-metabolism, but that kind of thing had always been H.I.V.E's style not CADMUS's.

"This must be the only one, or at least one of the first. I would have heard from the hire ups if it were anything different. Is there anything significant?"

Lane replies flatly.

"Wait. Here! It's a girl."

Vasquez comments suddenly.

"It says that?"

"No. An X-ray shows it," She answers, turning the screen slightly toward them, revealing a black and white pale radiograph of what has to be a skull, as she points at various parts. "This, this… and these are all typical markers of female anatomy. And judging by the sutures in the skull, I'd put her anywhere between ages of nineteen and twenty-five."

Silence.

"What are those?"

Maggie asks, looking at the small blips of white thin protrusions… three, four, five on each side of the jaw.

"Uh… According to the file, those are… pins."

More silence.

"Is there anything in that file that can tell us about that door? About where that individual is? Any transport information, things of that nature?

Lane questions, hands moving to rub the stubble of his jaw, Maggie's unsure if it's a deliberate movement or if he's unconsciously ghosting over where the pins were in the mystery girl.

"It's likely that…" Winn starts. "If it wasn't in the schematics and since it was detached from the electrical grid, they didn't want this to be found. There is a key log with a register of who was signed in and out over the last few weeks. Subject K-52-L was signed out six days ago, signed back in the same day. Since then only staff has been through those doors."

Even more silence.

"All other information is redacted. Wiped from the drive. Just like the computers upstairs."

Tension stretches across the room.

So thick it could be cut with a knife.

Then Davidson awkwardly clears his throat.

"Are we going to open it?"

All eyes turn to Lane.

"Not yet. Schott, can you get a visual? "

Winn swallows, but his expression evens out into one of determination.

"Yeah… give me five minutes."

He cracks it in three.

Revealing a black and white CCTV of ten cell-like apparatuses.

Nine of them are empty.

The tenth one isn't.

A lanky individual swathed in oversized scrubs, stands barefoot against one of the walls, arms wrapped to her chest in large, hulking silver cuffs that Vasquez insists isn't a stress position, and something magnetic holding her up against the wall by her back.

Through the gritty footage, Maggie can see the mask, steellike and metal, anchored around her face.

K-52-L.

"That look like a volunteer to you?"

… … …. ….

"You sure about this, Sawyer?"

Davidson asks, fingers tightening against the grip of his automatic weapon, while Winn prepared to open the door.

"Schott has control of the restraint system, the electrical grid, and the reinforced plexiglass walling off the cell. The fail-safe is shoot to kill at any inclination of malicious intent to harm. Lane's right, we have to treat it like an interrogation until we know for sure the individual is friend or foe."

Maggie states bluntly, watching Lane examine the fissures that had previously drawn her attention.

"Shoot to kill. Whatever happens. I know. That wasn't what I was talking about."

They both know that falsely presuming someone innocent before the dirty work was done had the potential for casualties, so no, he isn't worried about that. He's talking about is the haphazard plan, they'd put together in the last few minutes. The one that involved Maggie, as the team's most adept interrogator, going in with only Vasquez as backup to try to break the ice and see where things stood.

And Davidson, self-proclaimed muscle of the group, was clearly uncomfortable with letting them go alone. It wasn't a chivalry thing or a masculinity trait, she knows it's because he still blames himself for what happened to M'gann.

There's nothing she can say to temper over that guilt.

"Going in guns blazing isn't the best idea, that would put us on the wrong side of things. And should something happen, the less people in there, the better. Makes for a quick escape. You can stay outside the door with Lane, he wants to observe anyway."

Maggie replies.

"Not when those people are the medic and our second in command."

Maggie pretends not to have heard, busying herself with detaching her own weapons apparatus from its holster as Vasquez approaches with a tablet in hand, having finally left Winn's side.

"Current vitals, the monitoring system still works," Vasquez says in explanation at the questioning look in their eyes. "though everything in her file is saying the temperature is baseline. You ready?"

Maggie exhales a long breath, glancing at the footage displayed on the monitor.

"Ready as I'll ever be."

… …. …..

Establish a pattern. Say hello in the same way. Don't raise your voice. Be conscious of your tone.

Ingrained into Maggie since her early days at the Academy.

The corridor seems longer from the inside. Davidson posts himself at the entrance, but it takes a solid five minutes of forced easy walking, heads on a swivel, moving past empty cell after cell to reach their destination and by that point Davidson is the size of her thumb.

Maggie inhales sharply when she first comes into contact with who could only be K-52-L, reading the file and seeing it in person are two vastly different things in this scenario.

She's taller than what Maggie would have expected, but there's no strength, power, or confidence that would portray that in her stance, still as the strong magnetic hold pins her to the wall.

Now that she's closer, the brunnette sees clear details of what was murky on the grainy video footage. Sees that the large shackles encase most of her for arms, forcing them to fold across her chest, but her hands, large and bruised, remain free. Sees the mask shackled across the bottom part of her face, a metallic silver in front, with leatherish brown straps on the sides, the insertions of the pins just barely visible beneath a halo of dull blonde hair. Sees the purposeful impassiveness on what she can see of the blonde's features.

Sees that Vasquez was right, this woman couldn't have been older than twenty-five.

"Hello." she says, trying to keep her voice gentle, holding her hands to demonstrate the lack of weaponry.

Nothing.

Not even a blink.

"Do you speak English?"

Nothing.

"Do you understand what I'm saying to you?"

Still nothing.

"According to the file, she should."

Vasquez breathes lowly over her shoulder, but the woman doesn't even blink. Unresponsive isn't the best way to put it, K-52-L's eyes, a striking, haunted, cobalt color, have been tracking their movement through blown pupils ever since they entered the room.

Her mind skirts through the possibilities. Was she being stubborn? Could she physically not speak because of the mask? Or was it something else entirely?

Damn redacted information.

"Can you talk through the mask?'

Nothing, the disconcerting stare only growing more unsettling.

Vasquez shifts uneasily at beside her.

"Vitals are climbing, you might wanna reroute," the medic whispers.

Nothing visibly supports this assertion, but Maggie doesn't dare question her friend's expertise.

"We're not here to hurt you, but we need to know if you can communicate so we can figure some things out. Can you nod if you understand that?

Nothing.

Then…

The blonde nods her head.

Jerky, barely there. But there.

"Good. Good. Are you going to cooperate?"

Slowly, the woman nods again.

"My name is Maggie Sawyer. This is Diane Vasquez. I want you to nod for 'yes'. Shake your head for 'no'. And… clench your hands for 'I don't know'. Do you understand?"

Nod. Yes.

"Okay... It says here your name is listed as K-52-L. Is that true?"

Head shake. No.

Figured.

"Is that what you want us to call you?"

Another head shake. No.

"Do you have a name? Something you want us to call you?"

Hesitance and Maggie watches the whites of the younger woman's eyes catch against the fluorescent. Steady, but somehow lethargic, as if she's aware but struggling.

Then, a shake of her head. No.

The former detective lets out a patient breath, without a name they'd have nothing to run through the databases, but she supposes that there were more pressing matters.

"Are you aware you're in a CADMUS facility, a sector of a known terrorist organization wanted for violations of the Nuremberg Code and crimes against humanity?"

Against the wall, the blonde's eyes bore into hers, cold, impassive, but not unfeeling, eventually, she nods.

"Are you working for them?"

Headshake. No.

"Is there a way we can verify that?"

She clenches her fists in response, seemingly pressing herself further against the wall.

An emphatic 'I don't know.'

Okay. Okay…

"Do you know how long you've been here?"

A jerk of the head. No. Further limiting Maggie's need for a timeline.

"Did you ever have contact or report to anyone called Lillian Luthor?"

Headshake. No.

"Did you ever have contact or report to anyone called Maxwell Lord?"

Headshake. No.

"Did you ever have contact or report to anyone called Hank Henshaw?"

Headshake. No.

Maggie pauses for a moment as she considers that information. Nothing in that line of questioning exonerates her, this woman barely knew anything, so the former detective is forced to redirect.

"They're giving you a lot of drugs, lots of them at extremely high dosages," this time Maggie sees the blonde's anxiety spike, sees how her shoulders suddenly rise, how her chest starts to lift, how her eyes betray the barest implication of something other than cold, defeated impassiveness, "Do you know what they were doing to you?"

The blonde's hands clench tight. So hard Maggie can see the whites of the blonde's knuckles and unclipped nails digging into calloused skin even through the plexi plated glass.

I don't know.

"Sawyer..." Vasquez warns, but the former detective isn't ready to let it go just yet.

There's a reason she's playing hardball, because there is no goddamn way the federal law enforcement, government entities, or hell even, Lane, will release anyone, friend or foe, out into the general public without knowing the slightest inclination of what was done, past experience had proved that a more horrific mistake than anything else.

"I need you to think for me okay? Really think, did anything ever- "

The blonde's hands start to tremble, but it isn't what makes the former detective stop talking, something behind the blonde hisses, like a gear unwinding or pressure being let off.

Vasquez stiffens at the noise, but Maggie continues to look forward at the woman, examining her expression for any inclination of what's to come, but the cobalt eyes had rapidly shuttered off.

And suddenly something the attention is drawn to something glowing between the creases of the metal cuffs shackled along the woman's forearms, a peculiar neon green sludging through the darkened lines. Then horrifically up through the blonde's skins, like water in a straw, protruding the veins in a sickly green light.

The younger girl's head bows forward, shadowing her face with the dirty ringlets of blonde, but Maggie can still see the emerald green coursing up her neck.

And only one thing glows like that.

"Is that…?"

Vasquez starts, taking a step back.

Kryptonite.

"Hey… Hey… look at me-"

The comm in her ear roars to life.

"End it. Come back now."

…. …. …

"You shouldn't have pulled us out, Lane."

Maggie hisses, stalking out of the long metal hallway back into the incandescent pale yellow safety of monitor room. Vasquez right on her heels, fiddling with the tablet, scanning frantically through the files.

"Don't insult my intelligence by telling me you don't know why the fuck I pulled you out of there."

Her officer in command snipes back from his position above Winn at the monitors, glaring at her with emerald eyes that are oddly reminiscent of the green she'd seen seep up the blonde's veins moments earlier.

"I know why you pulled us out. I'm saying you shouldn't have."

Maggie replies steelily, staring him down.

"Did you not see what I- You going in there was an exploratory measure. Observe, see what we can learn, come back and form a strategy. You were in there for five minutes and the subject is already seizing."

The detective scoffs.

"I was trying to build rapport. Leaving her in the middle of that just builds mistrust."

Lane is silent. As are the rest of them. Watching the war of words with wide eyes.

"She," Maggie says pointedly, "was afraid."

"She's afraid," Lane growls unconvinced. "she's been harbored by a terrorist organization, she's under the influence of several mind-altering substances, and her body has been physically modified to prevent her from communicating," the team's leader continues unflinchingly, "And new people waltz in with questions, jesus fuck you didn't even say who you worked for, of course she's afraid!"

"That's not what I meant and you goddamn know it."

"Lane." Vasquez interrupts carefully, "Sawyer was right… about the fear. The kryptonite was released after her heart rate reached 140 beats per minute. It seems to be a precautionary reactionary measure put in place by the staff."

"Don't call it that."

"Don't call it what, Lane- kryptonite? The hell! You know that's what it was, no other liquid glows like that. Travels through skin like that!"

Vasquez rebuts cynically, unimpressed by the burgeoning anger seeping underneath the older man's seams.

"It's not possible."

"You can't be serious, Sam, I can count on two fingers the liquids that glow like that, and it sure as hell isn't strobe-light paint. You're only worried because kryptonite only reacts like that in the presence of one species and it isn't human," The fuse is lit and there's no going back now, Vasquez has unwittingly gone for the trump card. "That's right. Kryptonian. And that means you were wrong about Superman. Don't let it distract you from common sense."

Maggie steps forward slightly, the pieces of the puzzle coming into place slightly later than they had for Vasquez. What little she knows about Superman vastly derives from outside sources. Just that he used to be one of those hotshot heroes, adored by the millions despite his status as alien in a world where aliens certainly weren't and still aren't cherished.

But something had happened seven or eight years, a mental break, they called it. Where the self-proclaimed last survivor began insisting there were others of his own race, becoming more and more unhinged, radical, attacking people who weren't necessarily the bad guys, excusing them of capturing them without proper recourse. There'd been many victims caught in the crossfire including, Lane's cousin's fiance, famed reporter Clark Kent. Something Sam still took personally to this day.

He'd allegedly been part of the strike team that had put him down and forced him off-world six years ago.

"Superman has nothing to do with any of this. And even if he did, it only proves my point. People like that are dangerous."

"She was cooperating."

Maggie starts.

"Guys."

"Cooperating." Lane scoffs. "What choice does she have? It's not the same. She doesn't know she's been 'rescued,' Sawyer. For all intents and purposes, she hasn't. She's still locked in a cell."

"Guys."

"Hey, hey, hey! Can't we discuss this in a civil matter?"

Davidson yells, sliding in between them before the argument can continue.

All of them deflate, though the anger's still there, seeping away with the tension.

"Guys!"

And for the first time, they look at Winn, who'd been witheringly silent since the argument began.

"If… If subject K-52-L is Kryptonian it's likely too valuable asset to just be abandoned. There's a high possibility that CADMUS could come back and try to recoup its losses."

Silence.

"It'd be advisable to bring the DEO into the fold, Lane."

Silence.

"Come on, man. It's the department of fucking extranormal operations if this isn't extranormal operations I don't know what the hell is."

Davidson gripes.

Silence.

"Fine, tech boy, call in the National City sector, have them send in a team."

Lane mutters with barely constrained fury.

'I'm going back in, Lane."

Maggie says, but Lane doesn't even look at her.

"No. You're not. You're going to wait until the DEO get here, so if that thing ends up on the front page news wreaking havoc on the world, it's not on us."

…. … …

Tense isn't even the word to describe it. With the metaphorical clock ticking, the air feels weighed down with the heavy prospect of another communication breakdown, until the tension makes her hyper-aware of every movement. The options they have now are slim.

They couldn't leave the blonde here, too much negligent risk if CADMUS did come back to recoup their asset and continued whatever the hell they were doing. Eradicating the base with her inside it wasn't an option either. That'd only mean a Ruby Ridge situation, if it was verified she was in fact innocent. Or catching a lot from the flack from government entities for destroying a 'missed opportunity. Which means the only option left is transport. Something that Lane was unlikely to acquiesce to and unless more contact time was put in, Maggie was uneasy about herself.

Fucking Hell.

Winn had stepped out into the hallway with the stat comm, along with Vasquez who tagged along to watch his six. Lane left shortly after to finish clearing the rest of the building and no doubt take his anger out on the plaster walls. Davidson stays with her, it's not explained explicitly why, but it's obvious Lane doesn't trust Maggie not to venture into the room.

"Just thought you'd want to know, we ran the names through the databases cross-referenced them with missing persons reports in National City. Most of them were runaways, small time criminals, homeless…"

The muscular redhead coughs awkwardly, breaking the fragile silence.

"People no one would miss."

Maggie finishes for him.

"Yeah… Everyone except this one. Tech boy thinks there's a reason K-52-L doesn't have an actual name. Adds less to the paper trail."

Davidson nods, scuffing the edge of his ankle with his foot, refusing to make eye contact as he clicks through the tablet Winn left behind.

"It supports Vasquez's theory…"

He murmurs, quietly voicing what Maggie was thinking.

And the implication that Superman had been right about him not being the only one around, that the human race boosted an alien back into space for trying to find some of the last few remaining members of his species, makes her feel sick to her stomach.

Because they'd disregarded everything he'd had to say, even after all those lives he'd saved.

All in the name of maintaining the 'human first' peace.

Except that peace was a lie.

Because he'd been right.

"We'll know more when the DEO gets here," she says at last.

"They'll be here within the hour."

Winn comments warily, stepping back into the room after a lengthy conversation on the other end of the phone.

"They're sending in the DEO's Nelia-squad."

The precarious peace the team had been balancing on almost snaps.

"You know Lane isn't going to like that."

Nelia Squad is a legend of it's own making. They were also unabashedly pro-alien. A ranger squad of four extremely talented individuals that had continuously and consistently racked up successful mission count that had yet to be beaten within the last four years of their creation. Their ranks consisted of leader, renowned alien expert and former Air Force Pilot, J'onn J'onzz; another academy-trained graduate, James Olsen, famously known for his tendency to be on front lines, after a rather successful deviation into journalist; former marine, cousin of Samuel Lane, and DEO protege, Lucy Lane; and of course their second in command, Maggie's wife, Alexandra Danvers.

"Lane's going to have to accept it, it isn't going to change the fact they're coming," Vasquez says, walking in behind Winn, "Any changes?"

Davidson looks up from the tablet.

"No movement."

He says.

They all are silent for a moment

"But… the stress responses in the beginning were off the charts. Tachycardia. Tachypnea. The kryptonite seemed to work as a reverse antagonist bringing everything vastly up, then down into what would be considered 'human' range, considering her baseline is a little more than ten percent above that."

"And her temperature?"

Vasquez questions detachedly, but it's a very pointed line of questioning, one that's hard to miss. Even Winn straightens up at it.

"Her temperature's been lowering ever since from 104.6 to 99.5 as of now."

Davidson replies carefully, looking away from the tablet, deliberately eyeing Vasquez.

"It sounds like someone medically inclined, should do a work up, just, you know, to make sure the valuable asset doesn't become incapacitated and the DEO has something to work with."

And oh. Oh….

They're going against a direct order.

Lane's direct order. It's risky.

"And if someone trained in interrogation were to facilitate..."

The redhead looks pointedly Vasquez, then Winn, then Maggie.

"I'm going to take a leak."

And he disappears from the room.

.. .. .. . .. . . . .

K-52-L doesn't even look at them when they enter the second time, unmoving from her position at the wall, staring past them with bloodshot eyes. There were bruises, dark blackish green smudges around her eyes, the only evidence of the kryptonite, and they stick out in stark contrast to the chalky, dry paleness of her face, or what was visible of it, anyway.

"Hey. I'm sorry we had to leave you like that."

Nothing. Not even a blink.

Her gaze isn't necessarily empty, just unfocused. So unfocused that Maggie wonders if the girl is even listening.

"You with me?"

Stillness. Silence.

"C'mon kid…"

She mutters pressing her hand against the plexi -plated glass window.

And she's briefly reminded of the war stories Davidson use to talk about. The ones with those girls and boys who were silent, nonverbal, traumatized, because Al Qaeda, ISIS, CADMUS, or whatever asshole decided the run things amock when they were in charge.

Nothing.

"You've been here for a long time haven't you?"

And that, at least, grants a sheen of emotion across those glassy cobalt eyes.

"We saw the green drug coming from your cuffs," Maggie says, going into your veins, is what she doesn't say, "I want you to know, we didn't mean to do that, and if it hurt you, if it's still hurting you, we're sorry."

The room is quiet, so quiet Maggie can't even hear Vasquez breathing behind her, as the blonde continues to stare past them.

"We were able to verify some of what you told us." she continues, deciding to push on with a fabrication of what isn't entirely the truth, "Do you... know who Superman is?"

And that, as she suspected, gets a concrete reaction out of the blonde, her brows drawing together, her breathing suddenly becoming very deliberate. But still she gets no direct answer.

Maggie holds back a bit, not wanting to trigger the kryptonite response.

"We have more friends, more good guys, who are coming to try and help everyone out, but we have to know something really important, okay?"

Silence, but her hands are moving, not the familiar 'I don't know' gesture, but the gestures she'd started doing earlier, running her thumbs against her knuckles.

"Don't worry, we're not mad. We're not going to hurt you. We just need to know okay?"

Maggie asks steadily, struggling to keep her voice even, trying to exude an aura of calmness even when she can't slow her beating heart.

Vasquez moves up slightly behind her.

"You're not human are you?"

K-52-L shudders and the metal groans, but her head doesn't move, neither do her hands, instead only metal sounds, creaking like a broken door.

….

…

...

Silence.

… …. …. ...

"Sawyer, Vasquez get back here. Nelia Squad's on it's way down."

Maggie wants to groan, wants to mutter, to make any noise that will swallow the dread swelling in her gut because she's got nothing. Nothing except a mystery woman who obviously wasn't supposed to be here but wasn't giving up shit on why she was here. Nothing but little tells, like a clench of the jaw, a narrowing of her eyes, and the nervous fidget thing the blonde kept doing with her hands, but even that is circumstantial.

The detective grinds her teeth together, forcing herself not to clench her fists in frustration, a sign that would surely only be taken as aggression by the woman on the other side of the glass.

"We have to go," Maggie says, waiting for a response as if the dirty blonde hadn't stopped responding minutes ago.

She and Vasquez approach the entrance of the small room just as Nelia Squad enters.

The first person to come into view is James, his jaw grit with determination, smile warm, but distracted as he flips through the electro-pad. Behind him, Lucy follows with the same tunnel vision immediately moving towards Winn to survey the contents of the laptop.

And after her... Alex.

"Hey." Maggie greets, as her wife slides over, positioning herself next to the smaller woman, setting her gear pack on the floor.

Though everyone knows they're married, standard protocol dictates they keep everything professional, it stiffens the amount of personal interactions they can have while on call. Not for lack of trying.

"Hey," Alex murmurs back giving her a crinkly-eyed smile, but there's an aura of nervousness and stress in her movements. Something Maggie's unused to seeing in their few times together in the field.

J'onn J'onzz, despite being the leader, is the last to enter, calmer, slower with his movements. That and his greying hair are the only signs he is nearing retirement, because he still stands tall and authoritative with all the grace and power of the pilot he once was. His eyes are sad as he nods at Maggie, painted with a look that has seen too many of these horrors before, but before she responds, he's moving to talk to Sam, face so red with anger it's about to explode.

Maggie's fairly sure, he will be able to at least identify the species, confirm what they all guessed as fact, but that left a whole other can of worms if it was actual truth. Mounds of churning guilt and societal outrage and bureaucratic paperwork if it ever got out.

She doesn't really know what to think about that.

"Danvers, with me." J'onn calls across the room, wizened and strong. "Sawyer, Vasquez you too. I want to see what we're dealing with."

… …. ….

The walk down the hallway lengthens every time. Dark, desolate, and awfully depressing. But necessary. Vasquez leads the way, skimming vitals once more, as Maggie closely follows, leading Alex and J'onn past holding cell after holding cell.

And when Maggie finally brings them to the girl, encased in all the plexi-plated glass, she hears Alex gasp.

"Oh my God…"

Alex murmurs shakily, stiffening, stepping forward with wide eyes as she presses her hands against the glass.

"Kara?"

Notes:  
The prompt was, what if Jeremiah had given Kara up when CADMUS came for her all those years ago?


	2. Chapter 2

Oof. This took me a lot longer to write that than it would.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

… ….

There are things Maggie knows. There are some things she doesn't.

Maggie knows Alex's favorite color is blue. She knows that Alex loves scary movies and is obsessed with the punk rock band Barenaked Ladies. She knows that her wife never eats sugar in the middle of the day, except for the Rocky Road ice cream in their freezer that Alex insists is sugar-free when they both know it isn't. Knows that Alex will always try her 'weird vegan food' at least twice and likes her coffee with honey instead of sugar, something the taller brunette had picked up when she'd lived in Seattle before they'd met. She knows that Alex's caramel eyes crinkle at the edges when she smiles and that she snorts when she laughs too hard and- the point is... Maggie knows Alex.

She's known Alex for five years, dated her for three, been married to her for almost two, and with that kind of time and that kind of commitment, she really knows most things.

She knows that Alex could have been a doctor, but took the other path. Knows that her relationship with her mother, Eliza, is tense at best. Knows that Alex got her six-year sobriety chip last month.

Most things.

So, when Maggie hears Alex's surprised gasp and watches her facial expression contort into something that expresses guilt, relief, horror, and everything in between, she knows.

She knows her wife only has that kind of emotional connection to one person with that name.

Her sister.

Except Alex's sister is dead. Will have been for nine years in March.

Because every year Maggie puts in three days vacation and travels back to Midvale where she sits between rows of tombstones with Alex and her mother, gazing at the smooth, engraved marble slab planted in the manicured grass that etches out the name Kara Zor-el Danvers. She sits and pays her respects to Kara who died at fucking fourteen years old, rubs circles against Alex's back when she cries, while Eliza, eyes red-rimmed and glassy, always put a fresh batch of flowers on her daughter's and her husband's grave. Both having died before Maggie herself ever had the privilege to meet them.

So, she knows…

Maggie's line of sight flits back toward the girl on the other side of the glass, risks a glance at the blonde who still has dark greenish shadows smudging her features, whose movements are sluggish, whose eyes are unfocused, but after sweeping the room linger on Alex- and maybe that could mean something, but it could also be wishful thinking.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Vasquez looking at her, something akin to confusion, then unease coloring her expression, expecting an answer that the second-in-command doesn't have an answer too. J'onn stands just behind the medic, staring into the enclosure, hands crossed under his arms, jaw clenched, with a resolution in his eyes so somber it makes her feel as if she's missing something.

Acid tickles her throat and she swallows it down heavily, turning her attention back to Alex, forcing a half-step forward to place a hand on the taller brunette's trembling shoulder, her wife's name barely on the tip of her tongue when Alex whispers again, "Oh my God, it's Kara…", and there are actual tears intermingled in her words this time.

Deservedly so, and Maggie wants to believe it. She does. She wants to believe that the blonde on the other side of the glass is Alex's sister. Wants to believe her wife's distraught words spoken with such fragile certainty because Alex, above anyone, knows her sister. But the inner detective cries out 'what if' within her.

Because if it is...that means that Kara is not dead and instead of being with her family, reaching milestones, growing up, she's spent the last eight years here being the experimental pincushion of a terrorist organization. It means Kara… is an alien. It means Superman was right. It means so many things.

And if it isn't her. If it's someone else who just happens to share the same blonde hair and cobalt eyes as the cherubic teenager in the polaroid in Alex's wallet, then it would only serve to tear Alex apart.

"Alex…" Maggie starts, not blaming, not accusing. "Are… are you sure?"

The taller brunette opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. Instead, her voice dry clicks with emotion, as she reaches out blindly behind her for Maggie's hand to hold, eyes still solely trained on the window in front of her. But she nods as Maggie takes her hand, and for now, that's enough.

"Okay…" Maggie whispers, more to herself than to anyone else. "Okay, okay…"

Before her thoughts can string together anything coherent enough to formulate some type of plan, groaning metal cries against the confines of the small hallway. Maggie snaps her attention back to the girl, the origin of the sound, and is practically swallowed by the awful blend of confusion, of dubiousness, of… recognition skirting across glassy eyes, the hollow stare retreating some, the barest pinprick of life coming back into her eyes as she sluggishly pulls against the metal harness, trying to lean forward.

Vasquez steps half a back and Maggie tenses, but the blonde only continues to gaze vacantly at Alex.

"I think…. I think she's just confused?" the medic murmurs after a moment, and Maggie suspects Vasquez is right, because no further effort is made on the blonde's part. "But I'd watch how we approach this, because vitals are beginning to spike."

For a moment, there's an uneasy silence. She feels Alex's grip solidifying in her own and knows that her wife is putting her professional mask back on, steeling herself for what's to come. But she's not quite there yet, until then Maggie is happy to take the reins.

"Hey…" starting slow, attempting to draw further lucidness back into that unnerving thousand-yard stare. "Remember how I said our team was bringing in more good guys? I kept my word."

The blonde's eyes slowly, agonizingly slow, tilt away from Alex, toward her, but the strong inkling that everything's going in one ear and out the other is too familiar as she continues. And God, Maggie wishes she hadn't pushed too hard the first time, because every response now seems heavily tampered by the kryptonite and any of the several pharmaceutical depressants Winn had rattled off just hours ago.

"This is J'onn J'onzz. And this is Alex Danvers." she continues scrutinizing the blonde's reaction to those names. Watches bleary, blown pupils focus, constricting, then dilating, like the lens of a camera. Watches pale hands begin to tremble, wobbly gaze flitting to the door, then back to Alex. "And back in that room are more good guys. Good guys that want to help get you out of here. Will you let us help with that?"

 _Choice. Give her a choice. Always give a choice._

Though she doesn't know what she'll do if the girl says no or, more importantly, what Alex would do.

The blonde's fingers twitch briefly, as if she was going to answer, but she doesn't. Instead she closes her eyes, closes them so tightly that Maggie can see the tension draw across her forehead.

"Heart rate is rising." Vasquez comments, slight panic overlaps the concern in her tone, painfully aware of the importance of what that means. "125 and going up, "

"Kara," Alex interrupts, soft, calming and if not for the slight shake in her words, nothing like the shell shock of earlier, "Kara, it's okay."

Metal groans again in front of them, not from the girl leaning forward this time, but from pulling down against the magnet, as if she's trying to curl in on herself. Her eyes don't open either, if anything seal themselves tighter, until they're barely slits in her face.

"129." Vasquez whispers.

"It's me. Kara. It's me. It's Alex. And I know it looks crazy. I know, but you have to calm down for me. Please." Alex pleads, voice cracking, but Kara is in no way listening because Maggie can feel her tremors vibrating the floor underneath her feet.

"132."

"Alex..." she warns in a huff of breath, ears craning to hear the inevitable hiss of the mechanism that will blow this situation further into hell.

"Uh… Um…" Alex stutters trying to find something that will help. "Remember... Remember when we w-we were kids a-and Dad took us down to Littleville Lake? He wanted to take us fishing, both of us this time, because you had never gone. But Mom said it was a horrible idea because… because you- you were only saying yes because you practically idolized us. But you were sad about Clark and I swore to her, up and down, it would cheer you up."

Maggie knows this story, Alex told a variation of it once, a long, long time ago, she knows and Kara must know it too, because, her shaking stutters, her head tilts as if she's listening, as if-

"And when we brought you down to the shore, you refused to get in the boat because you were scared of the water. And I thought it was stupid. Because you could fly. You could have lifted that boat out of the water, if you wanted too."

Kara doesn't just know it, she remembers it. Maggie can see it in the way her breathing changes, how the metal groaning falters and the former detective thinks that maybe the confusion wasn't solely due to pharmaceuticals, but maybe because she was unsure that the Alex in front of her was that Alex from all those years ago. Maggie let's hope flutter in her chest, glancing back at Vasquez, who isn't saying anything, eyes flitting rapidly between the tablet and the enclosure. When the medic feels eyes on her she turns toward Maggie and nods.

"It's working," she mouths. And good. No news is good news.

"But you were about to cry. You were shaking so hard like the water was going to burn you. Saying all this stuff about strength correlating to density and how the boat would sink. Just all of this stuff." Every word Alex says weights itself with emotion, with desperation, with assurance, even when they tremble in the effort to get them out. "And I told you…. I told you, you would not sink the boat with me in it. I told you what you told me when we finally got around to actually being sisters… I told you we were El Marayah."

The tension slices through the room at those last words. It's Alex who's shaking now, J'onn who tenses, and the blonde who's frozen.

"That's right. El Marayah. We're stronger together. So please… just… it's okay. It's going to be okay."

Kara shudders once. Twice. But she doesn't open her eyes. Instead, she does something worse.

She cries.

Silent tears that glimmer like glass against the harsh, fluorescent lighting of the enclosure, spilling down what's visible of her face, seeping into leather, rolling off steel.

Maggie feels salt encroaching in her vision just looking at her. But still, something bothers her, because it isn't tears of relief, of resignation, or even pain.

Just complete, unequivocal despair and something else, something barely decipherable.

Shame.

… …. ...

"We need to get in there," Alex's says, antsy instead of shell shocked now, to no one in particular, still forlornly watching Kara take slow, forced breaths. Her heart rate had leveled off at 120 after she'd stopped crying. Not good, not baseline, but not worse.

"Not yet."

"But J'onn-"

"Agent Danvers," All he has to say is her name. His words are quiet, heavy with something not quite discernable, but his authority is palpable, and his words have their desired effect because Alex reluctantly backs down. Only slightly, but enough. "There are charges on the interior interface of the enclosure. I suspect it's triggered by motion, for what I'm not sure, but if other precautions are to such a degree, it likely will cause substantial harm."

A brief examination proves he is right. Two deadbolt configurations engrained in each side of the wall, two purposeful to be just a cosmetic feature, a pale-yellow light dotting each like a fucking cherry on the top. Maggie doesn't recognize the technology, and that's probably why she missed it earlier, but knowing CADMUS its top of the line. Perks of being bankrolled by the fucking Luthors.

She huffs out a breath in frustration, considering the blonde has only barely calmed down, her hands moving again, fluttering thumbs rubbing against her knuckles as she tries to shrink smaller.

The older man steps forward, hand on his chin now, deep in thought.

"Extraction Protocol Four," He asserts at last. Unfamiliar with the jargon the DEO uses, it doesn't mean much to Maggie, but Alex is nodding, even though it seems like she wants to say more.

"We're going to get her out safely as we can. I give you my word, but you understand there must be precautions," he continues, "I need to know you can handle this."

"I can handle it."

J'onn's melancholic expression regards Alex for a moment, before flitting to meet Maggie's eyes.

Then, at last, he nods.

"Let's get started."

… … …

A tap from the front entrance distracts Maggie from the flurry of preparation in the hallway.

She doesn't know how she heard it over Vasquez relaying another complete set of vitals, J'onn ruffling through his gear pack, and Alex explaining the incoming procedure to both her and the blonde, who almost certainly isn't listening, but when she turns she sees James Olsen, who gestures her toward him when he catches her eye.

Excusing herself from the palpable tension of what is arguably to be the toughest extraction she's ever faced, Maggie trots up to greet him when it becomes clear he's not coming further in.

"Hey," the former reporter turned DEO agent starts lowly, deep tenor steady and calm even though his warm eyes betray his concern. "How's it going in there?"

Maggie looks briefly over her shoulder at J'onn, who's moved towards the control panel, and Alex, who has begun sliding on latex gloves and medical masks, and that action she understands because it's part of the Academy protocol as well. The importance of not donning personal protective equipment still fresh in their minds after the Morticocus Virus incident.

"They're going forward with Evacuation Protocol Four."

Olsen nods, brows stitching together as he absorbs the information.

"Okay… Winn intercepted some radio chatter from CADMUS, they're discussing sending out a cleanup team to recoup their lost assets," he mutters, glancing down at the stat comm on his wrist. "Now they don't know we're here yet, but as far as I can tell the most valuable asset on this base is in that room, and they'll undoubtedly come prepared with what it takes to subdue her. We could take them probably... but after that, we're on their radar. Not just the NCPD or the DEO. Us. Specifically. I'd rather be in the wind before then, but that means we have to be out of here within the next two hours."

Maggie tenses, thinks it over for a moment, "It can be done. I'll try my best to make it happen."

"Evacuation Protocol Four…" Olsen muses, staring past her into the hallway. "So, it's confirmed? The subject is alien?" he pauses, then continues, voice even lower, almost hopeful. "Kryptonian?"

"Alien confirmed. J'onzz doesn't want to label further than that and jump to conclusions." Maggie regards him closely, sees the sense of urgency his eyes, and doesn't say what else is unconfirmed, for it's not her story to tell.

She pauses.

"But he's not denying it."

….. …. ...

It is difficult putting a timeline on trauma.

Maggie can still feel the ghostly stare of those distant, cobalt eyes tracking her movement when she re-enters the hallway, even when it's impossible after a brief glance at the blonde, who seems intent on ignoring them. Unlike Kara, both Alex and Vasquez, who were crowded together over the stat pad, turn their gazes to her, equal parts concern and questions in their expression.

"Olsen says we have about two hours before CADMUS sends in a cleanup team." Maggie huffs under her breath. The women stiffen at the unwelcome information, glancing warily at J'onn who fiddles with the door mechanism on the ground next to them.

"J'onn is almost done getting the door open, then it's just a matter of extradition," Vasquez affirms.

Nodding her acknowledgment, Maggie retreats into her thoughts.

J'onn and Alex are the only ones who will breach the enclosure. It makes her nervous, but it had been a mutual decision made on a multitude of factors. Leading with the fact that both the DEO agents have a significantly higher range in experience with extranormal situations, ending with Alex being the one that could successfully talk her down if needed.

The main worry is keeping Kara calm. The groaning metal has proved, at the very least, that her enhanced strength was still in play. Alex had mentioned flying when she recounted the memory. And Maggie remembers that Superman had had a multitude of other abilities that proved very, very capable. Then there was the issue of the programmed kryptonite response…

It boiled down to finding a way to keep Kara from hurting others and from hurting herself.

Alex had mentioned that as part of Evacuation Protocol Four they had a preplanned-

Click-

The sound jolts her from her thoughts and Maggie looks at the panel next to the door just in time to see it fade from purple to a dull grey.

You got this, she mouths, when Alex glances back at her anxiously, practically vibrating with nervous energy.

She glances at her stat watch as her wife moves closer to J'onn, 4:15.

With almost no strength on his part, J'onn slides the door to left, creating just enough of an opening for one of them to walk through, and he lets Alex through first, who's already speaking in low words, Maggie can't quite hear from the outside to the blonde who tenses up upon their entry.

She does, however, taste the stale air, antiseptic, and bleach on her taste buds, stifling her lungs as the smell from the enclosure wafts out.

Jesus.

"Did you know…" Vasquez murmurs after a few moments of watching Alex speak with Kara. "Did you know that they were sisters?"

She shrugs as she watches her wife pull out two syringes, each with green tipped bevels on the top. One was a sedative, Alex had explained earlier. Something high grade and a complicated, but familiar name. It had been used to knock out Superman, a fact her wife had very purposely neglected to mention, but Maggie had recognized from one of Sam's drunken rants. The other was a detox serum to help aid with the inevitable withdrawal.

"I knew Alex had a foster sister, yeah," Maggie replies, watching the blonde's vitals spike again on the tablet as her wife palpates for a vein. "But we thought… we thought she was dead."

"But you didn't know that they were sisters?" Vasquez repeats, her question more pointed this time.

"If you're asking if I knew she was an alien, then no."

"And that doesn't bother you?"

Maggie muses for a moment.

"No."

It's impossible to judge choices without understanding the reasoning behind them and in all the years she's known Alex, she knows her wife never does anything without a compelling reason.

J'onn and Alex are frozen now, waiting for the sedative to take effect, precious minutes counting down as they did, but Maggie knows they could not rush this.

Slowly, slowly… she sees tension ease throughout the blonde, shoulders lowering, fingers slowing, then ceasing their movements, and then finally her face relaxes, cobalt eyes sliding open, vacant and hooded as they'd been hours before. It makes Maggie wonder if Kara was being so compliant because she trusted them or if it was because it was expected of her.

She swallows gravel, trying to stifle the meaning of all of this as she turns her focus toward the tablet, which places the girl's heart rate in the upper nineties.

She doesn't see J'onn cut signal, hackles chilling down her spine as she listens to the steady hum of the magnet and the thrum of electricity, but she hears him in front of her, a click echoing loudly as the lights flicker and the hum grinds to a halt.

And with it so does the power of the magnet.

Previously unseen tubing and cords tinged with cloudy, crimson-tinged liquid become visible as gravity dislodges them from the blonde when she droops forward.

Both Alex and J'onn reach out to steady her, Kara's arms are still manacled together, tethered to her chest, as she draws her knees up, legs tucking back down against herself, even in sedation as he helps her slide to the floor. It's a hell of a defense, mechanism, hiding any potential injury. Confusion, concern, then a flash of pure, adulterated hatred, contort across her wife's face as she takes in the state of Kara's back, gritting her teeth as she takes a sharpie, jotting down the names of each on the back of her hand.

"How long…?" Vasquez murmurs quietly breaking the uncomfortable silence. "How long has she been missing?"

On the other side of the glass, J'onn very carefully places a hand on the blonde's back and wedged the other one underneath her knees, sliding his arm through the hole his hand made, he lifts her almost effortlessly into his arms.

"It… It would have been nine years in March."

"My God…."

Almost nine years in this prison.

Nine fucking years.

… …. …

"Holy shit."

Davidson curses softly, towering over Winn who still sits rigidly at the flickering desktop computer. Lucy, Sam, and Olsen glance up from where they're huddled together in the other corner of the room, varying degrees of expression on all their faces, mirroring Davidson's muttered utterance. But overlaying that was a heavy, odd pressure tightening the atmosphere in the room, stretching the air so thin until it feels hard to breathe, until the line between control and chaos has never been thinner.

There had been tension before. When Davidson first found the unmarked door, when Nelia squad had first entered, when Olsen had informed her of CADMUS's cleanup team.

But this is different. Different as they all stare at the lanky, blonde curled in J'onn's arms. So, different it's palpable.

She flits back over to Winn whose hands are frozen at the keys, then to Lucy, who moves the tablet the trio had been staring at slightly behind her.

They must have found something.

For a moment everyone is silent, waiting for the other side to blink first.

Then James steps forward, dark eyes scanning over the blonde in J'onn's arms, and when he looks up there's cautious hope, recognition, and dubious apprehension skirting across his dark features.

"Did you… Did you verify anything about her identity?" Olsen asks, with such intensity, that it seems as if he already knows the answer.

Another silent pause.

"One of the six beta ports previously connected to her back contained a green substance, programmed to be injected once the heart rate reached 140. It was labeled diaphenohydramadine monoxide. A synthetic chemical form of the one weakness we knew he had." J'onn doesn't say who 'he' is, but he doesn't have too, not blinking as he regards them all evenly. "We called it synthetic kryptonite and we only used it once. We only needed it once. Almost seven years ago."

Sam pales, opens his mouth to argue, but J'onn speaks over him.

"There are facts, that we must recognize here. It is a fact that she was held up by neodymium magnets, one of the strongest metals currently known in this solar system. A fact that she was heavily dosed with a variety of pharmaceutical depressants. A fact that she is restrained by an apparatus that appears to be forged from adamantium. And it is a fact that the enclosure was rigged until I deprogrammed it."

Olsen grimaces, so hard Maggie can see the muscles tighten in his neck.

"It is also a fact, that CADMUS would not have any individual restrained to such a degree if it wasn't warranted. And it is damning to know one of those chemical restraints was synthetic kryptonite, which only reacts in the presence of one species." J'onn continues, methodically laying the groundwork for his case, and how can he be so calm, so detached.

"I can conclude with great certainty, that the girl I'm holding in my arms is Kryptonian."

Strangely, it's Lucy who reacts to that information first, kicking out at a wall with such ferocity, it has everyone flinching for their guns. James reaches out, presumably to calm her, but she shrugs away, shifting closer to Sam. The rejection isn't enough to stifle the solace in his demeanor as if J'onn's conclusion was what he was expecting all along.

"What's the plan?"

He asks, breaking the fragile silence of the others who don't share his reaction.

"We can't give her to anyone," Alex replies almost immediately, shouldered in between Maggie and J'onn, crowded in the underground bunker that serves as their temporary headquarters.

"And you're basing that off what?" Sam scoffs. His face is pale, his demeanor shaky, but still he speaks as if he's the most powerful person in the room.

"Were you not listening? She's Kryptonian and she's been there for eight years. Do the math."

"Alex, if she has been with CADMUS for eight years," Lucy murmurs, saying it slowly, as if the words are eating her alive, "then there's a chance she knows more than she's letting on. Orders, plans, where other bases are. I highly doubt Henshaw or the others haven't been down to check on such an important asset-"

"She, Lucy. She's a she, not the asset. And you know what happens if we take her back to the DEO, Lucy. It's not just exchanging a prison for a prison." Alex interrupts roughly, "We'll have to report it to Chase, who'll either turn her over to President Baker and his anti-alien agenda or even worse, Amanda Waller and her team of cronies, and I'll never- we'll never see hide nor hair of her again."

Olsen hums his agreement. "I'm with Alex on this one, we have to think about how we play this. The DEO wants to take down CADMUS just as much as anyone, but they love their weapons. If we give her to the organization, she continues to be one, but with Uncle Sam's backing and that's the best-case scenario."

"T-that shouldn't change anything…" Sam starts, but there is no conviction behind his words as he glances sideways at his cousin. And again, Maggie gets the vibe that Nelia squad knows something that they don't know, something that Lane also seems privy too. "The mission prerogative-"

"You know what, right this second, the mission prerogative doesn't actually matter," Maggie cuts in flatly, jutting her index finger toward the semi-conscious girl in J'onn's arms. "Look at this. Don't forget this. We know that she was a prisoner. Kidnapping, false imprisonment, whether it's CADMUS, the DEO, or us right now, this is not someone who volunteered for this shit. Handing her over to any organization like she had a choice- they'll treat her like a terrorist. She'll never have her own choice again."

"Choice? She's a ticking time bomb!" Sam mutters. "It's unfortunate, but it's true. If we let her out now and she goes ballistic on everyone, it's on us. Maybe a secure unit is what she needs." he says, echoing his earlier words, but even he can't keep his words straight, eyes lingering on the blonde. "She's dangerous." his jaw tightens. "Tell me I'm wrong."

"You're right, Sam. She's dangerous. And so was Superman, but he was also right. And that means the United States was wrong. For what they did all those years ago, for what they did to him, for what they made you do to him. And we know how these things work, right?" Alex's voice cracks through the air. "The United States has to be right. Has to be."

"If we turn her over, they won't imprison her," Vasquez whispers, realizing. "They'll kill her."

"Maybe... that's the right call." Davidson mutters.

"Jesus Christ, Davidson! Do you hear yourself right now?" Vasquez rebuts, sounding just as stricken as Alex looked. "Did you even read the file? They tortured her for eight fucking years. They tortured others. Killed them."

"No. They didn't." Winn says lowly.

"What?"

All eyes swivel toward the lanky computer expert.

"No. They didn't." Winn repeats, swallowing hard. "I've been scrubbing the files all afternoon...nothing can be truly erased. And I found documentation, I found footage, Vasquez. All the people Leslie, Irma, Mon-el… we were right. CADMUS wanted super soldiers, they wanted weapons. But they didn't just want one, they were training an army. They were making them fight each other and K-52-L came out on top every time."

Blood runs cold in Maggie's veins at the implication of those words.

"They were killing each other?" Alex murmurs.

And Maggie tries not to think of the way the blonde had curled in on herself, at the way shame had contorted her expression when she cried.

"As far I can tell, CADMUS legitimately wanted to recoup their assets, but K-52-L was becoming too powerful... They had her marked as unstable. They couldn't control her anymore." Winn trails off looking at his hands.

And there it was. Why Sam looked stiff, why Lucy was up in arms, why Olsen seemed so wary, why Davidson was siding with them.

The reason for the unusual tension.

They were scared at the implication of what that could mean.

"The only reason she was even leaving the unit was every two weeks for sanitation. Until they could figure out what to do with her."

Fucking. Hell.

Sam smoothed out his shirt, flexing his shaking hands into fists, in and out. "Look. I am sympathetic. What's been done to her," he grimaces. "It is unacceptable. It is inhumane. But what J'onn said, what we've seen, what the documentation showed- she's unstable."

"Jesus, Sam! You sure are perfectly content sending-" Alex doesn't even finish her sentence, before Lucy is in front of her, shoving herself between Alex and Sam and Maggie reaches out for Alex, to steady her, to stop her from doing something she might clearly regret, but before she can-

"Stop." J'onn commands and the room falls silent, Alex relaxing back into Maggie's grip, everyone instantly deflating.

"This is not," he begins carefully, his steady calm still exuding authority. He exhales slowly, through his nose. "This is not something I've seen before and we need to think about this rationally."

"Jesus." Davidson mutters, lacing his fingers together and resting them on the back of his head, green tinges his cheeks as he glances away the blonde, back to whatever's on the computer screen.

"What we need is time. Time that we are running out of." J'onn continues, "The longer we stay here, the likelihood that we run into CADMUS's clean up team increases, and the matter is taken out of our hands. Agents Danvers and Olsen are not wrong in their assumption, the leadership at the DEO has changed recently and not for the better. But you aren't wrong either Sam. Actions can't go unquestioned. But, I fear those questions won't ever be answered if we send her to deaf ears. I fear the President Baker will react negatively to any presentation. I fear the world isn't prepared for the implications of what this means. Thus, we will not turn her in this current present, but we won't release her to the public either. Whatever your decision may be for your team, consider it, but I'd ask you please leave us and the girl out of it."

Sam's hands shake, steadied only by Lucy's hand on his shoulder.

"You're asking everyone in this room to break the law, for what…" Sam, stutters his resolve wavering. "What happens when the drugs wear off? What makes you think we have a shot of controlling her? Why go through the effort to contain her, when if, tech-boy is right, even CADMUS was having trouble?"

"She's my sister," Alex whispers finally, choking on her words. "Her name is Kara. Don't tell me you wouldn't do anything for Lucy. Don't tell me he didn't do everything trying to find her."

Sam and Davidson look sick, Winn is a deer in the headlights, Lucy and Olsen resigned.

Silence pummels forward until it roars in her ears and the room can't escape it.

"Sam…" Lucy whispers.

"I…" Sam wavers, then his expression crumbles. "What do you need us to do."

…. … …

They split up.

The idea is to make everything look as normal as possible. At least to anyone watching their coordinates on the technological grid. J'onn and Alex take Kara to one of two DEO vans they had brought with them, laying her gently on the stretcher, covering her with one of the shock blankets. Alex says it's stocked with some medical equipment, enough to get them by. Maggie sends Vasquez with them anyway. Knowing that two medics were better than one if things went awry and that Vasquez would keep an eye on Alex, who's already teetering on the edge, trying to keep herself together.

Davidson, Winn, Olsen, and Sam take the NCPD four-wheeler. Unlike the DEO vans, it still has its tracking beacon, and the commissioner would likely notice if it went offline. So, they'll drive it North, until they reach Tigerville. If it goes well, it'll seem like a normal debriefing, and they won't notice the car had stopped moving until it was too late. Giving the boys enough time figure out another means of transportation, and reroute to where she and Lucy are headed now. The middle of fucking nowhere apparently.

Lucy had been on the phone the entire time with somebody, Maggie doesn't know, only half listening. Her focus turned to the stat pad, reading the new details, horrific details, of what Winn had been scrubbing from the desktop. More X-rays, lab results, sick, disgusting experiments. Heavy doses of fentanyl, sleep, then sensory deprivation. Trying to see just how invincible she actually was. There were temperature tests of extreme heat and extreme cold and... scribbled notes of the viability of a half breed. Holy Fuck.

She slows down, forcing herself to read again, praying for a mistake, but it isn't.

The date on the note shows it five years ago. Meaning she would have been, what… 16?

Fucking monsters.

She scans rapidly looking for an update.

 _Inferian Donor. Not viable. K'hund donor. Not viable._

They tried it again a year later.

 _Daxamite Donor. Not viable. Hellgramite. Not viable._

Then the year after that.

 _Human Donor (Havok). Not viable._

Havok. She knows that name. Why does she know that name? Maggie scans further.

K-52-L deemed infertile. Genetic engineering research for a hybrid to be discontinued.

And maybe that's something. There's not some toddler running around CADMUS, but it makes her sick. With how many times they fucking tried, with how many fucking people-

"You're going to break the stat-pad if you squeeze any harder." Lucy murmurs dryly, glancing at her whitened knuckles, then her eyes through the rearview mirror. Slowly, Maggie releases the iron grip on the tablet, lets it fall onto her lap.

"We can't let Alex see this." she murmurs slowly, blinking the salt from her eyes.

"I'll call you back, Cat. Thanks for doing this on such short notice." Lucy says into her phone before hanging up.

"Cat?" Maggie echoes hoarsely, staring out the window into the forest of passing trees. At least it isn't a desert anymore.

"Cat Grant," Lucy confirms offhandedly. "You'd be surprised what media moguls do in their spare time. It's one of her safe houses, that we're headed too. She's not attached to any organization, but she owes me a favor. So, it should be safe."

They settle into an awkward silence for a moment.

"I told you it wasn't pretty."

Lucy sighs.

"We can't let Alex see this."

Maggie repeats, staring at the tablet's darkened screen.

"You're married to her, Sawyer, you know as well as I know, that Danvers will find out somehow."

"How am I going to look her in the eye and tell her that in addition to turning her little sister into a mute, drug-addicted, murdering science experiment, CADMUS tried to turn her into a fucking baby machine too."

The other woman's hands tighten against the steering wheel.

"Maybe not like that," she mutters dryly, but there's no humor in her tone. "I hate to break it to you, but we'll be combing through this stuff thoroughly. We need to know what happened to the asset if we're going to make a case and ever see the broad of daylight again. If you can't handle it, no one's going to hold it against you. And if Alex can't handle it, she's going to have to figure it out, but no one will hold it against her either. Because we're all in the thick of this now. Together."

"I can handle this. I just- I just-." Maggie asks and Lucy doesn't answer. They've both been in this game long enough to know that there's no rhyme or reason. "I didn't even recognize her. There's a photo of her in Alex's wallet, there's one in our fucking living room, Eliza has a shit ton of them. And I didn't recognize her."

She tries to laugh at the sheer disbelief, but it catches somewhere in her throat.

"I was with Kara Zorrel Danvers for hours before you'd even shown up, trying to get her to talk, and I didn't recognize her."

Lucy's jaw clenches, and briefly, she's reminded of Sam.

"Do you know…" she pauses, averts her eyes to the road as if she's deciding something. "Do you know why Sam is wound up about this whole thing?"

"He was on the squad that took Superman out."

"He was the one who pulled the trigger," Lucy says roughly, reluctantly Maggie nods, unsure of where the conversation is heading.

"You know… Superman wasn't Superman all the time. Superman was his alias. I knew… I knew who he really was. So, did Lois… Especially Lois. James too. But Sam didn't, it wasn't something that was advertised, and we were close, but never that close even when we were younger. So, Sam didn't know. And Sam pulled the trigger."

"Lucy, what does this have to-"

"Clark Kent was Superman." Lucy breathed out. "Clark Fucking Kent."

Oh.

 _Oh…_

Clark Kent, Lois Lane's fiancé.

Clark Kent, the famed reporter.

Clark Kent, another notch in the graveyard of Alex's family she'd never gotten to meet.

"Sam and Clark had been friends. They weren't super close, just drinking buddies in college. After that, every few weekends they'd catch up. He even asked Sam for his blessing when he proposed to Lois, because Dad was dead, and Clark had his oh-so traditional values. But even after all of that, Sam didn't recognize him when he took off his glasses. So… he pulled that trigger." Lucy recounts matter-of-factly, but the bitterness is present in her tone.

And Maggie doesn't know what to say.

"He thought he was a fucking hero for one fucking hour. Lois was the one that told him… who screamed at him." she mutters. "I know Alex had a tough time when Kara went missing, tried to drown herself in all that alcohol… Well, Sam just lied to himself. Convinced himself that he was right for what he did, said it over, and over, until, to him, it was true. But it tears him apart, I can see it in his eyes."

Lucy sighs.

"I thought for years, how could he not know? How? A fucking pair of glasses was all it took? Really? But you come to realize Sawyer, people don't see what they don't want to see. Kara was supposed to be dead. For almost nine fucking years. I wouldn't have believed it either."

… … …

Cat Grant's safe house is a three story-cottage tucked deep into the forest, far, far away from anything even remotely occupied and very, very guarded. Maggie spots twenty security cameras in just the trees leading to the gated entrance, though she suspects there are more hidden amongst the shrubbery. Solar panels on the roof and a miniature hydro dam in the front lawn, ensure a steady stream supply of electricity. Lucy mentions as she presses a couple of numbers on the key entry pad, a stockroom with enough food to feed ten people for a year and medical supplies that rivaled a hospital's. It is the true definition of safe house and it makes Maggie wonder what kind of enemies Cat Grant had, that made her felt the need to have one.

The other DEO van is already parked in the garage when they pull in, Alex and the others had beat them there, having taken deliberately different routes on the way up. Adjacent to the van, is another car, a burgundy Honda, that's obviously seen its fair share of the road. It looks distinctly out of place, compared to everything else in the area that appears brand new and top of the line.

"That's Querl Dox's" Lucy comments, following her line of sight as she steps out of the van.

"That is Querl Dox's" a heavier, more masculine voice repeats, from the garage entrance. The man in walking from the entrance toward them is small in stature, maybe an inch or so taller than her, and scrawny, like Winn. He has olive skin that glints peculiarly off the incandescent lighting, as if she blinked, his skin would shimmer away. She does blink, but nothing changes. Instead, he's only closer, sweeping back impeccably cut shiny, black hair with one hand, reaching to shake her's with the other. "Pleasure to meet you, Margaret Danvers-Sawyer. And it's a pleasure to see you again too, Lucille Lane."

There's something disarming about his awkward, almost robotic, but genuine wording and when she returns his grip, his hand is warm in hers.

"It's nice to see you again too, Brainy." Lucy's voice takes on a soft quality, full of a warmth that Maggie doesn't recognize on her, as she shakes his hand too. "Leaving so soon?"

"Oh yes. All this nature does me no good." the man, Brainy, continues almost apologetically, if not for his monotone voice. "But I fixed the cuffs and reprogrammed the configuration system. It was quite simple, actually. I gave the disarmament instructions to Alexandra. Do with it as you feel fit."

He steps back, closer to his car, looking at them with impossibly big eyes, and under the light, his skin seems to shimmer again.

"The mask?" Lucy questions.

"The mask was not connected to a programmable code. It was drilled mechanically, into the sides of her jaw. I am a computer scientist, not a surgeon. It is not within my capabilities to complete tasks of that nature."

Lucy sighs, smiling sadly. "Thank you, Brainy."

"Thank you." Maggie echoes.

The olive-skinned man steps into his car, starting his engine.

"You are welcome. I hope your friend feels better soon."

Maggie finds herself nodding, along with Lucy.

He nods once back at them.

Then he's gone.

"Brainy's a little weird," Lucy says, when, they walk up the stairs, "but his heart's in the right place."

… … …

"Where is everyone?"

Lucy asks when they enter the living room to find only, Alex, perched on the ottoman, and Kara, laid out on the couch, the edges of shock blanket tucked up against her chin.

Alex doesn't say anything, absorbed in the tablet she holds her hands, and when she moves closer Aggie recognizes the familiar documentation Winn had been scrubbing from earlier.

Goddamnit.

"Hello… Earth to Alex…" Lucy tries again, and this time Alex thaws, turning to face them as if seeing them for the first time.

One look at the shadows in her eyes makes Maggie want to hug her and say everything's okay, but unfortunately, they're far from it.

"I asked where everyone was?" Lucy repeats, softer this time.

"Oh… Vasquez is in the bathroom. J'onn is on the phone. Trying to find a doctor." she mutters, the futility in that attempt is ripe in her words. "I told him not to bother, we can't force somebody to try and help under these circumstances."

"They're doctors, that's what they do." Lucy attempts, undoubtedly recognizing the truth in Alex's words, but still tries to keep the mood light. "Have you ever seen a doctor not try to help somebody who's in distress like this? Come on."

"Not anyone that could be trusted," Alex mutters. "Not anyone that can dig titanium alloy out of a Kryptonian skull." The resignation is written all over her face, the reality of this situation finally setting in as the adrenaline seeps away. Maggie and Lucy look pointedly at each other.

"Is she asleep?" Maggie asks carefully, eyes flitting toward the blonde, whose eyes are closed again, facial expression relaxed.

"No." Alex murmurs. "It's the sedative. We had to give her another dose. I guess she had a tolerance built up from all the other depressants."

The next silence is longer. Harder.

"Alright, get up."

Maggie murmurs, moving to help Alex stand.

"But Kara-"

"Lucy will stay with Kara. Right?" Maggie interrupts, looking pointedly at the other woman.

"Yep, I'll be right here with her the whole time," Lucy affirms, gently prying the tablet from her wife's fingers.

For a moment, Alex looks like she wants to argue, but she doesn't, electing to shuffle behind Maggie after one last lingering look.

They walk in silence to the kitchen, even though she knows Alex's mind must be whirring with all those dark, burgeoning thoughts. And Maggie decides to give her a moment to work through them on her own, before she helps drag her out to the present, stationing her wife on one of the stools next to the granite tabletop, busying herself searching the cabinets for some cups instead, filling them with water.

When she turns back Alex is shaking, her head in her hands.

Maggie sets down her own cup and lowers herself into the chair next to hers.

"Hey…" she whispers softly, tapping a hand against her elbow, "Hey, we're going to figure this out."

"I'm sorry…" she whispers, words muffled by her hands. "I should have- have told you."

Maggie sighs, "Told me what? Your foster sister, who I'd never met, was an alien?" sliding her hand to the sides of Alex's face, along her jaw, urging her to look up. "That Clark Kent was Superman? What would it have done?"

Alex's eyes are impossibly big, brimming with conflicting emotions; guilt, anxiety, exhaustion, and tears that threaten to spill over.

"I don't know. I-I…" she stutters.

"Alex, it wouldn't have changed a thing," she says, reaching for her hand squeezing hard.

"I lied to you, though…"

"Alex, it's okay…"

"It's not, M-Maggi, it's not. It's-"

"It isn't the most important thing right now." and before she can protest again, she continues. "How are you feeling?"

Alex shudders visibly, holding tighter until the skin around Maggie's hand is white, but she doesn't tell her to let go.

"I-I saw the files Winn was able to get… I was r-reading them, all… those awful, awful things" her breath hitches. "It's awful, Maggie… It's awful and it's not even the surface. It's n-not even the b-beginning and I j-just let it happen."

And Alex had always had that problem, blaming herself for things that were out of her control, and seeing it flit to the surface now, brings tears to her own eyes.

"Alex, look at me." Maggie murmurs, when Alex tries to avert her eyes again, "No, look at me. You were sixteen years old. There was nothing you could have done."

"But I… I could have…" and when her breath hitches again, Alex gives into the tears, leaning into Maggie crying onto her shoulder.

"It wasn't your fault…." she murmurs, rubbing circles on her back as Alex cries. "She's here with you now and it's all that matters."

She knows that the girl lying on the couch is a long way away from the cherubic teenager on the polaroid in Alex's wallet

She knows what withdrawal does to a person. How it strips them bare. Forces them to handle all that pain at the rawest level.

She knows things like PTSD, anxiety, and nightmares are unavoidable. And that it'll likely be compounded by ability.

She knows that there's no timestamp for trauma. No magical formula that they could insert and magically erase the eight years go away.

She knows this is going to be hard.

She knows.

"How are we going to do this, Maggie?"

She decides then that she has a new Mission Prerogative.

"Together Danvers. Like we always do."

Notes:

And oof, I was a lot meaner to the smol bean than I intended to be.

But let me know what you thought? I'm considering writing one more chapter just to show where things are recovery wise, if there's enough interest. But no promises on how long that would take me.

Bonus points if you could figure out who Havok was.

Edit for confusion: The reason Kara was keeping her eyes closed, was because she recognized Alex, but she knew she wouldn't be able to stay calm if she kept looking at her if that makes sense.


	3. Chapter 3

This one is a woozy. Time skips around a bit but the duration is during the first 48 hours post extradition.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

 _... ..._

 _"I'm going to have to tell my mom." Alex mumbles into her arms. "I'm going to have to tell her. She… she deserves to know."_

 _"Alex."_

 _"I'm going to have to tell her. I haven't talked to her in two months. And now I'm going to have to call her and tell her… that- that- her daughter is alive. That we've been going to that goddam_ _n_ _grave for nothing."_

 _"Alex."_

 _"And I'm going to have to… have to tell Kara about Dad._ _And a_ _bout… about… Clark. And why everyone stopped looking for her years ago-"_

 _"Alex!"_

 _"How am I supposed to do that Maggie? How?"_

 _… … …_

"How are you feeling?"

Maggie asks as she steps into the darkened study, handing over a freshly frozen bag of ice to replace the frozen peas pressed against Lucy's bare shin, her combat pants having been partly cut away by Vasquez in her haste to make sure nothing was broken.

"Eh… It's not as bad as it looks."

Lucy mutters, sighing in relief as she replaces the ice on her leg propped up against the desk, tossing the now thawed peas back in Maggie's general direction. The package entirely misses the mark, hitting the wall a good two feet away.

"I would have a lot more confidence in that answer if the bag you threw didn't just end up in no man's land."

Maggie replies dryly, leaning against a part of the desk that isn't obscured by Lucy's open laptop, foot, or impeccably organized office supplies. Her friend side-eyes her but doesn't say anything, instead choosing to cradle her left arm against her stomach. And that's another subtle but striking sign that the DEO protégé is hurting a little bit more than she's admitting. "Where's J'onn?"

"Just missed him. It's his turn for some shut-eye."

Lucy responds, and with the way those words are drawn out, it's easy to tell the harbingers of sleep are on the edges of her friend's consciousness as well. It is after all, just past three in the morning.

"Mind if I take a look?" Maggie asks, then without waiting for an answer, lifts the ice away.

Even with only the faint light radiating from the laptop and trickling in from the hallway, it isn't hard to discern the rising, purpling bruises making their presence known on Lucy's olive, scarred skin. Shit. Honestly, she's surprised no skin was broken. Not when the initial commotion literally shook the foundation of the house.

"Really, Sawyer... It's not as bad as it looks." Lucy says again, reaching for the ice pack, and Maggie must untwist her expression that must have shown her undisguised concern. "She has the same strength he did."

Alex had been right about Kara's apparent propensity for burning through sedatives, had burned through the next injection within two hours after she and Lucy had arrived. The disorientation from coming down off those drugs, the confusion of being in a new place, the trauma of… everything… hadn't allowed the blonde to piece things together well. And Lucy had been caught in the crossfire when Kara'd shoved the entire couch back into the wall, like it'd been on fucking wheels, trying to stand up.

Fortunately, that's where the immediate catastrophe ended.

With J'onn moving the couch away from Lucy, as Maggie moved to help her up.

With Alex and Vasquez trying to coax Kara out of the corner she'd shoved herself into.

Not the most promising start.

"Do you think she has all of his… abilities?"

Maggie ponders aloud, eyes drifting to the open case files on Lucy's laptop, the words are too small for her to read, but the notes she'd been reading earlier still resonate in her mind.

She had never been the most informed fan of Superman back in those days, because even back then he'd seemed more myth than man, but she'd had to have been blind and deaf to ignore his incredible feats.

The news reports of him stopping planes from crashing, lifting sinking ships out of the ocean, rescuing people from burning buildings.

Strength, speed, heat vision, x-ray vision…

 _The ability to leap a building in a single bound_ had been the fucking catchphrase of the media before they'd turned against him.

"I mean Alex said she could fly, she certainly has an inhuman metabolism and the strength… but CADMUS managed to drill nails into her face…Superman was practically invincible, could stop bullets with his pinky and not leave a mark."

Lucy shrugs and Maggie watches the DEO's agent's eyes go glassy with memory.

"Clark always said he grew into his powers… so it's within the realm of possibility, but I don't- I don't know right now."

There's a moment of silence.

"You didn't sedate her again did you?"

Maggie shakes her head.

"No."

Turns out kryptonite tipped syringes are hard to come by.

There's seven left and Alex wants to use them sparingly.

"Good."

And when Lucy looks at her again, the glassiness in her eyes is gone.

"I'm going to help Alex disengage the harness." Maggie starts, gauging Lucy's reaction carefully, "We're hoping it'll help with the anxiety… you know build rapport."

Lucy doesn't say anything at first.

Then, at last, she nods, stifling a yawn.

"I trust your judgment." She says, glancing back at the screen of documents. "Vasquez going to be with you and Al?"

"Yeah."

There's a beat of silence before Lucy nods again.

"How's she doing?"

"Managing." Maggie murmurs, rubbing her neck with her hand. "As much as she can for a situation like this."

The next silence is longer. Harder.

"You know you can get some shut-eye too, Lane," she mutters, standing up from the desk as Lucy yawns, unable to stifle it this time.

"I've always been bad at shutting off my mind," the other brunette replies tiredly. "Too many ghosts for that."

Maggie supposes she knows what that's like, knows the days where memories knock the wind out of her, the days where the margin between reality and nightmare is too thin, knows Lucy has enough scars and enough memories to not be sleeping for a good reason.

When she leaves, Lucy has her laptop balanced on her knee, looking through the files once more.

… … ….

Maggie's official job title, the one she puts on her resume, is A52 SAC Extraction Specialist in the NCPD's Tactical Counterterrorism unit. Extraction is a broad word, chosen by the academy because it covers anything that the unit might do. So far, it meant data reconciliation, suspect interrogation, detainment and sometimes, but very rarely hostage negotiation.

While working for the academy, she had very rarely come on to a situation with hostages, and in the events, that she had, being part of the field unit, she was rarely in contact with them for longer than it took to hand them over to the investigative unit.

Now hostage seems like a generous term for this situation.

She had entered quietly, forcing herself not to clench her fists or grind her teeth out of sheer instinct, forcing herself not to look too long at the Lucy shaped dent in the wall, though it's partly obscured by the couch, that had been moved once more into the corner. Likely by the blonde sitting stiffly on the edge of it, shoulder's squared, cobalt gaze already tracking her before Maggie can get her foot through the door.

"Hey, no it's okay, it's just Maggie, you remember Maggie." Alex is saying softly to the girl on the couch, while Vasquez sits just to the side of her wife, methodically leafing through a large medical container, scribbling the contents onto a yellowing notepad.

Maggie idly wonders how much Kara remembers of those moments, dim glances and empty expressions flashing to the forefront of her mind. She had seen Kara awake post-extradition a grand total of once if that even counts considering she spent a great deal of it peeling Lucy off the floor.

"Hey, Kara," she says softly, heart twisting, trying to balance the warmth and empathy in her tone because she doesn't want the younger girl to feel like she's being pitied, but God knows she's deserving of some compassion.

Their eyes meet briefly, and Kara's gaze is a great deal more lucid than it'd been back at the facility, no longer shadowed with sedation, but there is both a skittishness and an intensity in her bloodshot eyes that unnerves Maggie. Like she's looking for shadows in the corners of her vision. Like there are monsters lurking at the edge of her mind.

Even under the yellowish, incandescent lighting, the pale, almost translucent quality to her skin is stark, stretching almost painfully over scrawny muscles, highlighting the bruises, the scratches on her hands, and her cobalt eyes framed by long blonde hair. Maggie can just barely see the faded CADMUS insignia hidden beneath the tangled locks.

As she sits down next to Alex, Maggie realizes Kara isn't actually sitting rigid, her hands are trembling as they curl up against her chest, like she's trying to stop herself from rocking. Forcing herself to stay still.

"You remember Maggie," Alex implores again, and her hand reaches out like she wants to touch her sister, but she withdraws at the last second.

Kara's eyes snap back to her sister at the abortive movement, following her hand first, then trailing back up to her face.

But at last, she nods, and the extraction specialist takes the moment to assess the situation.

The blonde isn't acting like a flight risk or like she's going to kill them all if they uncuff her.

In fact, Kara, who's attention is turning towards Vasquez, or more specifically the medical kit, just looks like she's going to cry.

Maggie isn't sure if she prefers that alternative.

"How is Lucy doing?"

Alex whispers under her breath, looking at Kara as if she's going to dissipate into thin air at any moment.

"Stubborn like the rest of us," Maggie replies softly. "She's going to be sore, but only a little bit more than usual on days like these."

The other brunette nods, but Maggie can tell she's not really accepting her answer. That she's likely tearing herself apart over this, but before she can say anything-

"I'm ready."

Vasquez says and Alex jerks out of it, snapping back into her professional persona.

"Okay… Remember what I told you?" her wife starts, voice wavering. "We're going to get you out of that thing, so you can get a shower and change into something that's not… not… those."

Kara blinks, eyes going out of focus for a moment, before just as quickly clearing. So fast, Maggie is almost sure she'd missed it.

"Maggie is going to help cut the harness away and Vasquez is going to take a look at your back." Alex continues, finding her resolve. "I know... I know it's going to be a little bit scary, but I just want you to keep looking at me, okay?"

It's hard to tell if Alex is trying to talk Kara through it or herself.

The room is quiet again and Maggie can practically hear the blonde's breathing quicken as the trio give her time to process those words.

One second passes. Then two. Then ten.

Then eventually, she nods.

"Okay."

Maggie doesn't waste any time, slowly stepping in the blonde's direction, giving Vasquez time to reach Kara's other side, before carefully kneeling on the couch beside her.

"I'm going to be quick with this, okay." Maggie murmurs, taking the medical scissors that Vasquez hands over.

She waits until the blonde nods, then wiggles a finger between the stiff, blue medical scrubs and the rough synthetic fibers of the harness. It's a tight fit. So, tight that she wonders how Kara's even able to breathe in it. The heat billows off the blonde upon contact, wafting up with the sharp smell of antiseptic and grime, as Maggie finally gathers enough space in the fabric to slide the scissors under.

Her heart hurts as Kara's muscles quiver with tension through the layered cotton as she makes quick work of the tough fabric that shears easily with the aid of the fiber-reinforced metal shears. Until it falls loosely to the side, uninhibited.

"Good, good, we're halfway there."

Alex says, but Kara doesn't move, still holding her arms as if they're wrapped against her.

Maggie watches the blonde's breathing falter, sees her hands twitch, and knows that she's about two seconds from panicking, but Alex is already talking to her.

"Kara, hey, it's okay… just look at me." her wife soothes. "We're almost done. We're almost done... Can you extend your arms for me?"

The blonde's eyes squeeze shut and Maggie can see the rapid flutter of the blonde's pulse just underneath the junction where the steel of the mask met skin.

"It's okay," Alex pacifies quietly, uncovering Querl Dox's little gadget. "Take your time."

Slowly… slowly, Kara unfurls her arms, tendons quivering as if it hurts to do so, joints creaking and popping with disuse and Alex's lithe fingers move quickly over the cuffs before her sister can make the decision to withdraw.

The tool disappears from her view as she fiddles with it and in the same moment, Vasquez gently lifts the hem of the scrubs to look at the ports on her back.

Maggie feels her face flush with the heat of shadowed anger as she sees what Vasquez sees.

The state of Kara's back isn't a patchwork of scars, of puss, or crimson, bloody, infected mess, but that almost would have been better than the deliberate, surgical placement of the anchorages she's looking at now. They'd obviously been placed a while ago, new skin already stretching over the metal circles lined just below the crevices of her shoulder blades.

They must have drilled those in too.

Maggie feels herself swallow hard, but to Vasquez's credit, she doesn't even blink, just stares for a long moment, then scribbles something down on the notebook.

In front of them, the locking mechanisms hiss as they release, splitting the two larger metal cylinders that encase much of Kara's forearms in half, leaving only the small cuffs around her wrists. And that… that does reveal angry red, blackened greens, mottled purple, scarring crusty skin. The remnants of weeping flesh that twists in crisscrossing patterns like a tapestry, worse around the kryptonite injection sites, but infected all around.

Maggie sees the tightness in Alex's jaw as it clenches, sees Vasquez twitch involuntarily, but both of them continue as if what they saw wasn't a big deal.

"See… that's all." Alex says quietly, eyes trying to meet her sister's, whose line of sight has diverted back to Alex's hands. "We're going to leave the smaller ones on for now, just… as a precaution."

Kara doesn't answer, arms still held stiffly in front of her, and it dawns on her the same time as Alex-

"It's okay, you can relax your arms."

-that she's waiting for permission.

The blonde twitches again, a small jerky movement out of tune with her trembling form, like she's unsure what she's supposed to do, then slowly, slowly she curls her arms back to her chest until they're in the exact same position they were in the harness.

There's nothing anyone can say to that.

"I'll let you go with your sister to get cleaned up," Vasquez covers after the silence threatens to stretch longer than it needs. "And when you guys come back, I can take a look at your arms. It looks like they hurt."

Alex unfreezes, blinking rapidly to clear the salt from her eyes, then leans forward to help her sister stand, reaching out a hand waiting for the blonde to take hold.

She does.

When Kara stands, she shivers, hovering close to Alex like a lifeline. She's easily the tallest one in the room, definitely the most powerful, but there's a fragility about her that's depressingly apparent.

Like there's nothing but fraying threads holding her together.

Vasquez pulls her aside as they leave.

"Did you see that?"

"What?" Maggie asks, eyes still on the door. "The shaking?"

"Withdrawal," Vasquez confirms, moving back toward the medical kit. "Tremors are one of the hallmark warning signs."

The extraction specialist glances back toward the field medic, raising a brow.

"That isn't surprising, considering the cocktail of drugs forced into her," Maggie replies, pushing off the couch to follow Vasquez. "But I thought Alex gave her something for it?"

"She did, but you've seen the way she's burning through them. Unless Alex has a backlog of those things, my experience with withdrawal is that when it progresses, nausea usually follows," the shorter woman says, zipping up the bag. "That's going to be a problem if we can't get that mask off."

Maggie nods, mood darkening further.

What kind of world would it be if they rescued the girl from years of hell, just to have her choke on her own vomit?

… …. ….

The mask was surgically implanted.

There had to be a reason for that.

There had to be a failsafe.

There had to be more information.

Information that was likely in the plethora of organized case files CADMUS compiled neatly and methodically as if what they had been doing wasn't inhumane.

And when Vasquez left shortly after to help Alex out with Kara, the extraction specialist decides she's going to live with those goddamn files until she can find the grotesque little details that will tell her the what, why and how, so she can find a way to get the goddamn thing off the blonde.

The lights in the study had still been dimmed when she walked past, hands filled with Vasquez's hastily scribbled notes and her newly retrieved stat-pad, but Maggie had seen the outline of Lucy, head cradled in the crook of her elbow, caught in a restless sleep. And good, at least someone's getting some.

Stifling her own yawn, Maggie retreats to the kitchen, spreads the information out on the marble countertop, and sits with it for the next forty minutes trying to find a connection, staring at CADMUS's clinical notes, J'onn's expository script, Lucy's excessive highlights, and Vasquez's idiosyntric shorthand until it blurs together.

The x-ray Winn had found in the base was the most obvious information prevalent in the pages of documents. The date at the top shows that the surgery was almost two years ago, but Vasquez notes suggest that the degree of healing, while not complete, was indicative of a wound that had been made nearly two years before that.

Had Superman had enhanced healing? She couldn't even remember him ever being hurt enough to tell.

There's an older x-ray when she flips through the stat pad, one immediately performed postoperatively and she can clearly see what Vasquez means because there is a significant difference than the recent one. Thin hairline fractures lace through the blonde's jaw like spidery cracks in a fractured teacup. Like they used a hammer or some other tool with an immense capacity for short term pressure to pound the pins in, instead of a surgical drill.

Those cracks weren't evident at all in the newer one.

Maggie had broken bones before. Fracture lines don't just disappear. Not in that short of a time.

The postsurgical report is vague. In a column on one of the sidebars, it talks about the implementation of a nasogastric tube and around the same time upping the dosage of the fentanyl. There are sentence reports of infection and malunion that become further and fewer in between until they stopped being mentioned entirely seven months after the insertions. Then at the bottom, in small, technical font, the outcome.

 _Deemed success, through combination of surgical intervention and increased sedation, subject prevented from making excessive, unnecessary noise. If screaming continues, ventriculocordectomy to be considered, though research lacks on the prognosis for thermo-regulative vocal association._

Her knuckles turn white against the marble countertop.

No fail safe.

Everything about it reeks that this operation was supposed to be permanent.

Which meant that removal is going to be tricky if not impossible.

And painful.

Fuck.

"Sawyer."

Maggie tenses, reaching for her service weapon, disengaging the safety and turning around in a fluid movement only to see-

"Jesus Christ, J'onn!" the brunette half shouts, half whispers, deflating as she re-engages the safety mechanism. "I thought you were getting some sleep?"

The older man steps further into the kitchen, moving to the cabinets, seemingly unperturbed by having a loaded weapon shoved in his chest.

"I did sleep for a bit, yes," J'onn discloses, pulling out a bag a medium roast, full city coffee as Maggie glances at her stat-watch. "Much of my time, however, was spent diverting our superiors off our path. Winslow says they were sending out feelers."

He doesn't explain what he means by that, but she nods anyway. Lets J'onn's innate calmness soothe her fraying nerves as she struggles to focus back to the stat-pad while he fixes his pot of coffee, but the words swim across her vision.

"I assume you haven't had any rest, either."

J'onn says, more than asks. His dark, amber eyes skirting across the marble countertop.

"No." Maggie admits. Twenty-nine hours, wasn't anything to sniff at. "But Lucy's getting some shut eye, so that's something."

The squad commander hums his surprise. Apparently, Lucy's inability to sleep being something well known amongst the Nelia squad.

"If I were to tell you to get some rest after she woke up, would you follow that order?"

He asks a hint of tired amusement coloring his tone as he pours his drink.

"I think you would know the answer, considering you aren't my ranking officer."

Maggie whispers softly, but a small smile lets him know she's not taking him seriously.

"Then take this mug."

J'onn says like he's not taking no for an answer, and that sounds more like an order than anything as he hands her the cup.

He circles the counter with his own drink, looking at the notes she's made on the stat pad. The older man doesn't say anything for a long moment, but Maggie sees the despondency in his eyes, like a father who failed his child.

"Vasquez says there's a high chance of her going into withdrawal." the brunette starts, in lieu of what else to say. "She's concerned about the mask being a problem. I've been going through files… but everything is saying that it was meant to be permanent. So I don't know how we should prepare if- if... "

J'onn sighs, sitting down next to her.

"I am aware." he interrupts quietly, rubbing the crook of his jaw. "And my efforts finding a doctor have fallen short, I'm afraid, and I've come to realize putting anyone in such a position is ill-advised."

So, they had nothing.

"Jesus Christ," she mutters, salt blurring the cup of coffee in front of her.

Maggie wants to curse, wants to scream, knows she doesn't usually get riled up like this, knows that this is partly her exhaustion talking, but also this is also her sister-in law. It doesn't make it any easier.

"Maggie." J'onn says, turning towards her. "Take a breath."

Softly, but an order.

She drags the cool air into her lungs.

Forces it out.

"I'll help you go through them."

…. …. …..

The dawn starts slowly pressing up against the window just past five in the morning, trying to batter its way in, and Maggie watches the light illuminate the cracks in the blinds across the kitchen table for a long time before sitting still becomes too much and she has to stand.

Her cup is empty and so is J'onn's.

"Do you want a refill?"

J'onn glances up from the psychiatric case files, but shakes his head in refusal, looking back down at his work as he adjusts his glasses. So she grabs her own and is watching the brown liquid pour into her mug when they walk in.

It's Alex first, the weights of exhaustion evident in her movements, the dark, dark circles under her eyes, and the sleeves of her combat jacket rolled up to her elbows.

Kara, inches in after her, swathed in sweat pants and a grey shirt so comically large, it must have belonged to Cat Grant's son. Though the blonde doesn't seem entirely present, the ghost of distress flickering across an otherwise blank expression, everything physical about her painfully is. Even in the darkened room, the angry, blackish red marks are painfully prominent on her arms that curl to her chest. But she's clean, face free of grime, hair pulled back, wet, but done in a French braid that has her wife's handiwork written over it. And for now, she supposes that's the best they can hope for.

In a swift movement, J'onn brings in the holograms from the stat-pad, hiding them from view and moves to stand as Vasquez enters last with the medical bag, none too discreetly studying the blonde's gait as she moves.

"Good morning." she murmurs, setting down the coffee pot, unsure of what to do next.

"Morning." Alex echoes, closing the gap, squeezing her hand tightly, and Maggie leans in for half a hug that her wife melts into as much as the situation will allow. She knows that they're supposed to keep public displays of affection to a strict minimum, but she also knows they both need this.

And no one says anything as they let go, not even Kara, whose line of sight is flickering away from them, diverting down to the floor instead.

"How are you feeling, Kara?" she tries, carefully trying to get her attention back.

Kara says nothing. Doesn't even look up at her.

Maggie blinks. Tries not to feel hurt at the lack of response.

"Kara." Alex prods softly, as J'onn begins to open the blinds, letting pale natural light filter in.

Another quiver trembles through the blonde's lanky form, but she still doesn't look up, staring at something on her arm. Maggie's eyes flit downwards, trying to decipher what the blonde is so engrossed in, and then she sees.

The sliver of yellow sunlight that pushes through the blinds paints a small, orange rectangle across Kara's forearms.

Kara's smooth forearms.

As the widening wedge spreads further along her skin, the red angry scars appear to fade, new flesh stretching across cracks, wounds, and crevices until it's untouched, unblemished… new.

"Holy shit."

Vasquez mumbles, setting down her medical bag and the bewilderment in Kara's eyes echo the sentiment, as she slowly unfurls her arms, that don't even creak or pop like earlier.

Holy shit.

The window's blinds are completely open now, light filtering in uninhibited, and as soon as they do the confusion reflecting in the blonde's expression splits into affliction, then discomfort, then pain.

Kara steps back in a jerky movement, pushing her back against the counter top, and Maggie sees the blonde's throat bulge and contract, abdomen heaving, as her eyes going wide with pain and fear and panic; more emotion than Maggie's ever seen from her, but now was not the time-

"Shit," Alex swears, a short, cut-off little exclamation, "What's wrong? What's wrong-"

Her wife steps towards her sister, reaching out like Kara couldn't kill her with the current lack of control and awareness bleeding from her shaking form, but the blonde only squirms away, curling further into the table top that threatens to crumble with the sudden pressure, and with a spastic movement, she reaches for the mask.

"The mask," Maggie stutters out, realizing. "The bone is healing around it, it's trying to close the gaps."

But aldmanium has very little that can work through it.

"Fuck," Alex swears again, and tries to reach for her sister once more, but this time Maggie doesn't let her. Holds her back as Kara reaches back for the table, trying to find something to hold onto, but only fracturing the marble as the other hand pushes against her chin, digging her fingers under the aldmanium mask.

Pulling.

Hard.

"Let me go, Maggie!" Alex demands desperately as spotty crimson begins to appear through the grey of the T-shirt the blonde wears, six round circles where the ports had been implanted slowly bleeding together.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees J'onn moving closer, quietly, quickly and Vasquez releasing her hold on the medical bag as she looks on with wide eyes.

But Maggie can only focus on the pops and cracks and the sound of something tearing as Kara continues to pull, but the metal doesn't even dent. Instead, crimson, intermingled with clear, thick bile, bubbles out, foul and viscous, from the perforations in the mask, pouring down the blonde's chin, staining her neck, mixing with the salty tears that spill over the metal.

Bile rises in the extraction specialist's own throat as she struggles to hold on to Alex.

God.

She's going to be sick. She's going to be fucking si-

Then there's a flurry of movement happening in the instant in it takes for Maggie to blink.

J'onn.

J'onn, who's sixty-one years old, with peppering grey hair, and has reading glasses thicker than Harry Potter's.

And somehow, he is holding Kara back.

Using one hand to force her grip away from her mask, using the other to pull her away from the table.

It's a stunning display of strength.

But there's no time to dwell on the implications of that as the blonde thrashes violently in his grip.

No time to dwell on the implications of that as the world slows down around her.

Alex is still pulling against her, still trying to break loose. J'onn is groaning in the exertion it takes to restrain her, almost having her contained, almost having the upper hand. Vasquez's shoes squeak against the floor as she rocks back on her heels.

But in those few moments, the extraction specialist only sees Kara's face go completely and utterly vacant, something dark flickering across her eyes, as some element of the blonde's mind chooses fight over flight.

And Maggie could only watch, her heart pounding in her chest, as Kara's deceivingly frail hand closes violently around J'onn's throat and propels him backwards, all but hurling him into the adjacent wall. He hits a cabinet door with a crash, sending dishes flying across the kitchen floor, but he doesn't fall, still hoisted up effortlessly in the air by one hand as the other goes back to work at the mask.

"Kara! Stop!" the extraction specialist scrapes out tightly like she's the one being choked into submission, when it's J'onn who writhes, attempting to use his dark muscular arms to pull futility out of her grip.

Kara doesn't even blink, sheer panic as she sways, the cracks emitting are louder now, the mask loosening, as crimson rushes through the gaps, and Maggie is entirely convinced that the adrenaline and fear the only things keeping her conscious, surely—

"Alex!" Vasquez shouts over the noise, finally unthawing from her position. "Alex! Where's the sedative?"

J'onn bucks against the wall, hands trying to find purchase, making contact with the coffee pot that shatters upon impact.

"Kara, please," Maggie hears Alex say in a raspy wavering tone, somehow heard past the crushing rush of blood in her ears. Somehow cutting through the awful wet gurgle of the blonde struggling to breathe through the compromised mask, and J'onn's choking gasps, and the splintering wood of cabinets as she continued to bear down. "You have to let him go."

The blonde ignores all of them. A low sound emits from the shaking girl, more animal than human, all dry and broken and desperate, when she yanks at the mask again, sending a new wave of crimson that soaks into the collar of her shirt.

"Alex!" Vasquez demands again, panic tinging the edges of her tone. "The sedative!"

Alex is no longer fighting her, hands shaking as she moves for a syringe in her pockets, while Kara shudders again, the previously implanted ports dropping out from underneath her shirt, clinking one by one as they bounce against the tile floor.

"Kara! You need to let him go!" Alex yells, sliding the syringe back into Maggie's hands, and her next words come out tight and high-pitched in a language Maggie has never heard, suffocating with all the fear and tension, suffocating with J'onn who's only just managed to loosen the grip fractionally to allow himself a proper breath.

"Don't." he wheezes at the same time, purposely, painfully even as he sees the syringe exchange hands from Alex to Maggie to Vasquez and the lack of oxygen has clearly gone to his head because he's crazy if they're all just going to sit here and watch him get killed. "Don't use it."

The skin where mask meets flesh is torn, mangled and bloody, and for a second, just a second, Kara twitches, the blonde's eyes, feverish and watery and scared, darting towards her sister, her, then Vasquez, finally resting on the syringe and with the remnants of adrenaline-fueled strength, she sways back and releases her hold on J'onn, who lands on the counter with a crash.

"What the FUCK is going on?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Maggie sees Lucy at the kitchen entrance, service weapon held high, eyes rapidly trying to pull together what was happening.

"Stay back!" Alex and "Put your weapon down!" Vasquez yells at the same time, not even sparing her a second glance because Kara has moved both hands back to the mask, doing everything she can to wrench it free.

And with a splintering crack, the mask does.

Landing with a clang in the small puddle of coffee, blood, and vomit, but Maggie can't even focus on that part.

"NO!"

Kara screams.

And she sounds so young.

Young, hoarse, ragged, and fearful.

"No! Nononono- I'm, I'm sorry. I'msorry- no i'm sorry" the blonde slurs, words spilling out over each other, made almost incomprehensible by the congealing crimson, torn muscle and a crooked jaw that's trying to heal itself.

Kara's hands come up again, swiping futility at the bloody bile that seeps between her fingers, trying to cradle the broken half of her face, but whatever she does must not settle well, because her abdomen heaves again as she vomits, crimson liquid slathering the floor, barely missing her feet as she continues to back away.

"Kara. It's okay." Alex soothes, inching forward, and this time Maggie doesn't stop her. "It's okay, you let him go. Just let us help you, okay?"

"I'msorry s-sorry, I'm- I'm-"

The blonde shakes her head in vehemently in refusal, stumbling on one of the ports, trailing bloody handprints across the wall in her attempt to stay up.

"Let us try? Okay?"

Alex attempts again, not faltering in her steps, and Maggie inches forward, nudging the mask, still perfectly shaped, behind her as J'onn rolls to his feet. In her peripheral vision, Vasquez gestures the man toward her speaking lowly to Lucy who has holstered her weapon.

"It-It hurts… h-hurted-"

Kara stutters through tears, the paint of the wall cracking underneath her back, but Alex is only an arm length away now, and it would be a lie to say that the tension isn't there, that everyone isn't watching with bated breaths, not with what just occurred.

"Okay… Okay… Let's sit down? Can you do that for me?"

Alex asks softly like she's speaking to a child.

Slowly… slowly Kara nods, but the panic is everywhere in her expression, and she doesn't move.

Alex looks back at Maggie, the unspoken words flowing through them.

"We're going to touch you now, ok?" Maggie murmurs, moving closer in an instant. "Just to help you sit, okay?"

And Maggie isn't pulled through the foundation when she makes contact with searing hot skin and helps Alex ease her sister to the ground, so that's something.

"I'msorry-I'msorry s-sorry." Kara mumbles through her hands, as her body twisted and trembled, trying to shrink further. "I'm sorry. I-I-"

"You didn't hurt me, Kara." J'onn's assuages, reassuring and calm and not even out of breath, as if he hadn't been hurled across the room. As if one cabinet isn't dangling on its hinges, another splintered to oblivion. As if the coffee pot isn't shattered and the marble countertop isn't splintered in half. As if the kitchen isn't one hundred percent a biohazard and isn't half destroyed.

But when Maggie glances at him, the only evidence are the tears in his shirt.

"I… I- I-" Kara's breath hitches again, her vision glossing over as she stares at the mask. "I- I-"

"Everyone's getting looked at. It's going to be okay." her wife reassures as Maggie twists to block her view of the metal. "Can you let me see your mouth? I need to see what happened."

Kara doesn't even twitch, mouth still moving wordlessly.

"Kara…"

"I-I… I- don't I'm-M'…. s-sorry." she mumbles again, the words barely slipping out past her intertwined hands.

"You're not in trouble," Alex says again, with as much patience as she can muster. "Just let me see."

For a moment, it seems as if she's going to ignore them again.

Then, slowly, slowly… Kara lowers her trembling hands, wiping away the remnants of blood with the back of her palm.

And the skin underneath….

Is completely intact.

…. ….

Everyone takes a shower.

It isn't a choice now, rather a necessity.

They'd all in one way or another, encountered bodily fluids.

It's the nicest bathroom she's ever been in.

It's also the quickest shower she's ever taken.

Because she can't stand watching crimson-tinged water circle the drain.

The only relief comes from changing into something that isn't combat gear.

… …. ….

"It's unbelievable," Vasquez murmurs, rolling the blonde's newly adorned Seton Hall hoodie into place, having completed the assessment of her back. "It's like it never happened. There's no crepitus, there aren't even any scars. If I had the equipment I would complete an x-ray just to be sure, but… it's… everything looks fine."

She sounds like she doesn't quite believe it and Maggie could hardly blame her. They had regrouped in the living room after going through the decontamination process for a hasty debriefing and spot checks by Vasquez, who's still brushing off guilt from having frozen up earlier and so far, all it had been nothing, but checkmarks for Kara's physical assessment.

Unfortunately, not the mental one.

"I'm s-sorry…. I am I-I- I'm sorry…"

Kara whispers loosely, much of the words muffled by her knees that she's buried her face in, arms crossed up against her chest once more as she fiddles her fingers, sweeping them over her knuckles much as she'd done at the facility.

No one says anything.

In the hours that pass since the kitchen incident, Maggie is getting the feeling that Kara doesn't really speak _to_ anyone, at least not when asked direct questions. Kara understands them, Maggie knows from all the jerky nods and refusals as she followed directions. But when it comes to saying things it had become apparent that the blonde is mostly talking to herself. Mostly whispery echoes of apologies or unprompted, clumsily put together phrases, that are almost childlike in their nature.

Sorry is all Kara's been saying for the last half an hour and nothing any of them say can get her to stop.

"This never happened when you were younger?"

"No." Alex affirms, wringing her hands together nervously on the ottoman across from her sister. "But there was never a situation in which it occurred. I-"

"The sun." Lucy interrupts quietly and all eyes snap to the woman leaning on the door frame. "He had said something about this sun being different from the one on Krypton. Made him stronger… healthier."

Maggie works back through the events in her head, remembers how the process only started after J'onn had opened the blinds.

She thinks back further and remembers how Superman always seemed to have a harder time fighting things at night.

"Lois always said on the hard days, he'd just lay out on the roof..." Lucy mutters, staring forlornly past them at some point on the adjacent wall. "She used to joke that one day they'd move to Florida because he loved the sun so much."

"You think it was the sun."

J'onn says, from his spot near the window, the inquiry in his tone.

Superman had been historically known amongst the department to abhor any scientific research done on him, no matter how well-meaning, and with good reason, considering synthetic kryptonite was still concocted without it. She's sure the DEO had been excluded from the information circle too.

And Alex had only been a teenager, which means Lucy is the best they've got, even when she's everything she's seen is merely a second-hand account.

Lucy shrugs non-committedly.

"The case files showed expedited, but gradual healing. Nothing this fast." Vasquez rebuts as if she wants to argue. "If it was the sun, it would have been seamless."

Maggie blinks, eyes shifting back to Kara, remembers how translucent and sickly pale she'd been.

"Vasquez…" she murmurs lowly and the next words come thick out of her mouth. "You're operating under the idea she saw any sunlight at all."

Alex buries her face in her hands.

… … ….

Later, when Kara starts saying more words than just 'I'm sorry', they decide sunlight can't be a bad thing and open all the blinds in the house.

…. … …..

J'onn pulls her aside as she's helping Lucy clean the kitchen.

"I rerouted Olsen and the others to a secondary location. Less stimulation, I feel might be more beneficial in terms of transitioning from the facility," he informs them, tone even and authoritative. "They will still be coming, but at a later date."

Both women nod, silently watching him leave. There's not even a limp in his gait.

"I don't know how he can be so calm," Maggie says, scrapping shards of glass into the trash.

Lucy shrugs, wincing as she stretches.

"You see a lot of shit, you can take a lot of shit'."

She wonders if Lucy kept that statement vague on purpose.

… … …

Kara looks at things as if the world doesn't make sense and as if there isn't a clear, overriding purpose, she's going to suffer for it. Her cobalt eyes flit from the abstract paintings to the pristine, fluffy carpeting, to the beige paint that layers the wall so erratically, that it's even difficult for J'onn, who's spent a lifetime studying reactions, to track her focus.

They've gently pried her away from Alex so her wife can get some much-needed sleep. It takes quite a bit of convincing for both sisters. But Alex, at that point, had been awake for almost fifty hours and had been dead on her feet while Kara had shown no signs of tiring, her exhaustion being the kind Maggie doubted she could ever sleep off.

In the end, Alex unintentionally makes the decision for them, closing her eyes on the sofa she's sitting on, not opening them again. Even in sleep though, she seemed restless as Maggie finishes draping a cotton blanket over her shoulders.

Vasquez had gone to get shut-eye eye some fifteen minutes earlier, after dropping off some more supplies, Lucy had holed herself back up in the study with more of the files, and J'onn lurks somewhere, he'd stayed the longest making sure that another kitchen incident wasn't going to occur, but excused himself for a phone call that she isn't entirely sure is real or if it's because the blonde is uncomfortable around him, but it isn't until Maggie turns around that she realizes this is the first time she's been alone with Kara.

And for a moment, selfishly, Maggie wants to wake Alex back up. Not because she thinks Kara would hurt her, whether unintentionally or on purpose, but because the extraction specialist is terrified she's going to say something wrong and fuck up the already fucked up situation even more.

Slowly, she stifles down the urge as the blonde's unfocused eyes, clear a bit, tracking her movements from the window she's folded up against, as Maggie moves to sit down across from the girl. It appears to be more out of habit at this point because Kara didn't seem overtly concerned when she'd been working with Alex. She keeps her movements slow and deliberate anyway, erring on the side of caution.

The next goal is getting Kara to eat something. She has four of those apple sauce cups and two bottles of gatorade in the bag that Vasquez had given her earlier, but she doesn't feel confident in the amount of progress that would be made without Alex to coax her along.

"I know you must be a little hungry." Maggie starts, in lieu of what else to say, as she eases into the carpet, deliberately facing the window so it doesn't seem like an interrogation. "I have some food with me, not a lot, but enough to get started."

Out of the corner of her eye, Maggie watches Kara blink in a horribly confused way, eyes constricting, then dilating, as if she's not entirely focused on the present like she doesn't understand.

Carefully, Maggie takes the apple sauces out of the bag, lining them up one by one between them like she's dragging a stick through the sand.

"It's applesauce. There's some Gatorade in here too, if you're thirsty." she explains patiently as Kara's line of sight drops from Maggie to the applesauce then over to where Alex is sleeping. The unspoken question is rife in her movements.

"It's okay." Maggie soothes, fishing out the plastic spoons. "That one's yours. You can eat it."

The blonde's eyes fall back to the apple sauce.

Then slowly, she unfurls an arm and grabs the small container, holding it close to her knees.

"You peel off the cover like this." Maggie starts, plastic crinkling as she demonstrates the movement with her own applesauce cup, "And just scoop the insides out."

The blonde mimics her movements, studying her intently like it's something she's going to be tested on later, but soon the room is filled with the soft scrapes of plastic against plastic as they both eat in silence.

It reminds her of the early Saturday mornings when she younger, doing the same thing with her cousins.

The normalcy of it all makes Maggie's soul hurt.

She's nearing the bottom of the cup, scraping out what little remains, when a shadow flutters past the window and Kara's entire body whips around to watch it.

Maggie tenses following her gaze, ready to pull out her service weapon, but nothing of danger is visible. Instead, it's only a pair of cardinals, busy poking around in the soft green grass, looking for food.

Kara's eyes widen in fascination as she shifts closer to the window, carefully uncurling one hand away from the apple sauce container to touch the cool glass.

The cardinals, in typical bird fashion, ignore her completely, but the blonde looks on with childlike awe like she'd never seen anything more beautiful in all her life. And Maggie supposes as far as she knew, Kara may not have. The cardinals, after all, may have been the first bird she'd seen in the last nine years, and clearly, it was fascinating.

"It's a cardinal," she says quietly. Kara whips to face her, and for a split moment, there's rabid fear in her expression, almost as if, in those few moments, she'd forgotten Maggie was there.

"Those birds… are cardinals. They usually fly down this way around this time." Maggie explains again, softer. The last part she doesn't entirely think is true, but it sounds like something she's heard before it, so she has no shame in repeating it.

After a beat, Kara nods slowly, then twists back toward the window, turning her full attention back to the cardinals and didn't shift her gaze again.

They stay that way, watching the birds in silence, until the birds finish eating and flutter away.

In the reflection of the glass, Kara swallows hard, eyes flicking up to look at Alex in the background, then to Maggie as she fiddles with her empty cup.

"You can have some more if you want." the extraction specialist offers as Kara sets down the small container, balancing the spoon on the top, so that it mirrors the one Maggie put down some minutes before.

The blonde looks up sharply, clearly startled by the offer.

"It's okay, you can have another." Maggie presses gently, nudging a cup closer in her direction.

Kara opens her mouth, but no words come out, as she shifts nervously, closing it again, her gaze dropping back to the two remaining cups.

Slowly, she removes her hand from the glass to hover over the applesauce, watching Maggie carefully as if she's going to change her mind. When she doesn't, the blonde cradles it carefully, peeling back the plastic without further provocation and soon the soft scrapes of metal against plastic fill the room again.

It's a small thing, her not needing to be prodded, but not insignificant.

It's a place to start.

"Y-your rings are the same…"

It comes out as half a whisper minutes later, a statement that comes out more like a question, already almost gone when it reaches her ears. And it still throws Maggie, who wasn't expecting her to say anything, much less that.

"What?" Maggie asks, glancing sideways at the blonde, but Kara's mind is far away again, eyes still focused on the window, gazing somewhere into the forest.

"Y-your rings are the s-same." the blonde repeats quietly, eyes flicking back towards her applesauce, as if that clears everything up. "Yours and Alex's."

And oh.

Oh.

In the haste of everything, Maggie hadn't thought once to explain what she and Alex were to each other to the blonde. And as tired as Alex had been, she doubted that she did either.

"Yeah." Maggie stutters over a fluttering heart, eyes darting to the gold band on her ring finger. "Yeah, that's because we're married."

She holds her breath waiting for Kara's reaction, but it doesn't come immediately, the blonde's eyes are glazed over again, glassy and far away.

Maggie wants to know where she goes when she spaces out like that. Wants to ask what's going on.

Instead, she looks back at the window with forced calmness and waits for Kara to gather her thoughts.

Long moments pass before Kara's eyes clear again and the blonde blinks slowly, brows stitching together as she looks at Maggie's hands.

"The rings are pretty..." she whispers airily, nodding to herself like she's putting puzzle pieces together in her head.

Maggie smiles, a little too sad to be reassuring, as she looks down a the ring.

Kara's concentration fades again as she looks back out the window.

The rest of the applesauce is eaten silence.

… … ….

Maggie gets her chance at sleep at the thirty-six-hour mark.

Curling into the sofa that still smells like too clean upholstery and the remnants of Alex's scent who laid there before.

It's a dreamless sleep.

She supposes it's the best she can hope for on days like these.

… … ...

"I told her we could call my mom in the morning," Alex whispers to Maggie when she wakes up to the setting sun hours later. "Through an encrypted number, in case CADMUS or the DEO try to listen in."

Maggie nods, squeezing her hand.

They're sitting on the couch as the darkening sky sucks sunlight from the room, watching Kara who is still where Maggie had left her, folded delicately against the window, arms curled to her chest, swaddled by her knees the against them.

There's a forlornness in her expression that seems out of place from the confusion, the inattention or even the fear that had been prominent earlier.

"I also told her Clark was dead."

Maggie squeezes Alex's hand harder.

... ... ...

 _Fin._

... ... ...

Notes:

Let me know what you thought?

For clarification:

I wrote this off the basis that no one really knows Kryptonian physiology, not even Alex who was a kid at the time.

J'onn is an alien, no one knows that except for Nelia squad, which is why he wasn't hurt when Kara attacked him.

Smol bean Kara does have psychiatric problems, having troubles focusing and keeping things straight, which is why she keeps going out of focus. The sun heals physical injuries not mental ones. A lot of her powers were also stunted from lack of sunlight, so she doesn't have a lot of them.


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Note: Well. This story has been in the back of my mind for a while and due some positive feedback and reviews and pms from here and on ao3, I decided to flesh it out a bit, write a basic outline, and make it a six chapter fic instead of three. \\\\\

…

"Kara," Alex whispers, quietly, to get her attention and then, "no don't", when the blonde focuses on her with a distant gaze and they both see the moment the younger girl tries to dig into God only knows how many fragmented messed up thoughts and drag them together enough to fake… something.

They both know Kara's world is teetering on the edge of the unreal, or at least the edge of where she can't tell what's real and what isn't, which amounts to basically the same thing.

Some of it is lack of sleep. The dark circles under the blonde's eyes had become more pronounced as the hours leaked by, her movements more sluggish, and until Alex had called her name, her head had been heavy on her knees. Had Kara's fingers not been sweeping over her knuckles, eyes half-lidded but open, Maggie would have assumed she _was_ sleeping.

The rest of it is trauma, compounded now with the despondence of grief. In the way she'd been quiet, so, so quiet, after she'd found out about Jeremiah and Superm- Clark, in the way her bare feet curl, then uncurl against the fluffy carpeting, in the way she presses against the wall, in the way her gaze is just a little bit off.

But only one of those things can be fixed right now.

"We don't have to stay down here." Alex continues softly. "We can go upstairs. Sleep in a real bed."

Kara doesn't say anything in response to that, downcast eyes choosing to focus on surveying the room, until the coherency is all the way back in her eyes. And even then, she only goes back to looking at her knuckles.

Everyone has been putting considerable effort into making everything sound like a suggestion, instead of an order. Although, Maggie's unsure how much that message is getting through. This isn't the first time they've suggested sleep and they've been sitting on the living floor for more than she'd cared to admit.

"It'll help… until the sun comes up again."

The blonde twitches, like she wants to lean into Alex, but can't quite bring herself too. And there'd been a great deal of that too. Abortive movements that the younger girl consistently made to stop herself from seeking comfort, even when Alex is more than willing to give it, but they're not going to push it, they're not. Even when they're inching past a quarter past two, and the pitch black of midnight had long replaced the steady warmth of light. Even when, in a few more hours it would be like the light had never gone away. Which would have given Maggie some type of relief, if it hadn't become clear that the sun wasn't a catch all. That it wasn't some miracle cure.

It wasn't a question at this point.

Kara, like anyone else, needed sleep, even if she had plenty of well-warranted reasons for not wanting it, but she wouldn't let herself.

"Is…" Kara murmurs, voice low and scraped over, barely a whisper. "Is… L-Lois alive?"

The younger girl's eyes don't leave her hands, but her expression draws together in such a way that it makes the skin on her brows crinkle.

It's the first thing she has said in hours, a heavy hoarseness intertwined with that steady, airy distance, like she's asking the room, instead of them. Yet, somehow, her words are more coherent than they've ever been, even with the strain interlaced within them, as if she's investing massive amount of energy to keep it that way. As if she loses focus on what she's saying it's going to disappear from her grasp.

Alex shifts easily, moves her hand slowly so that Kara can see it, and when her sister doesn't flinch away this time, rests it on her trembling hand.

"No." her wife says. "No… she's alive. She's up in Metropolis. She's still living up there."

Maggie swallows hard, wondering if Alex will expand on that, and when her wife doesn't continue, she knows Alex is leaving some things out intentionally for Kara's sake. Allowing her to make things sound better than they actually are.

Lois Lane had taken Clark's death hard. Very hard.

And as a result, she was a very elusive person.

She came to their wedding and sent out birthday and Christmas cards. Occasionally, she'd visit Kara's grave, but mostly, she just kept her distance.

In her heyday Lois had been the inquisitive, upcoming hotshot at the Daily Planet, known for her ability to ruffle the feathers of the robber barons and to get interviews with the elusive, hard hitters. Most noticeably Superman, and knowing what Maggie knows about Clark now, that part made a little bit more sense.

When Superman had gone _insane_ , the media jumped onto the witch hunt enthusiastically, and no outlet would touch the topic of the man potentially being innocent with a ten-foot pole, much less show him in any sort of positive light. But Lois had known the truth then, and, like all the Lanes, was stubborn.

It had gotten her fired. Then black listed. Then the government had put a gag order on reports about Superman. Effectively putting an end to anything Lois tried to do in terms of spreading the word. Around the same time, Maggie knew that she and Sam had been refusing to speak with each other, that Lucy had been deployed, that Eliza and Alex… had been going through their own spiral.

The witch hunt had essentially taken away Lois's job, her fiancé, her livelihood, her voice.

And she'd isolated herself from the rest.

Maggie doesn't know much of the details, having met Lois until years later, but she does know that it wasn't until Lucy had returned from deployment, that Lois had been able to get her shit together.

"J-Jimmy…" the blonde stutters over her words, already losing her focus, but they both know what she's asking, that she's going through her mental rolodex of everyone she'd known back before.

"Jimmy's alive too. He helped pull you out."

Alex rushes to affirm, but the crinkle on Kara's face only deepens as her pupils dilate, clearly not s making sense of what she's saying.

"And… and… Eliza?"

That's a question she should know the answer to, and Alex's wounded expression mimics that too.

"Alive." Alex whispers. "Remember, I told you we were going to talk to her in the morning?"

Kara nods, but it's like the echo of a shadow, as her eyes grow distant again.

"Just n-not… Kal…"

The blonde whispers detachedly to herself, eyes flitting down to Alex's shoes as the last of her words slip away into the air.

"I'm sorry Kara. Not Kal."

For a moment, it looks like Kara's going to say something else.

But she doesn't.

And Maggie can only watch as Kara fades out of focus again.

It's different than just zoning out the way a normal person would, but it's hard to find a way to quantify that difference, pin it down, and figure out what changes to make it look so damn sad.

… …. .

It's half past three when Kara finally falls asleep in the corner of the living room.

She doesn't move away from Alex's hand.

…. …

 _Diphenhydramine Monoxide Test 17_

 _Method of Delivery: Aerosolization_

 _Subject: K-52-L_

 _Dosage increased to 700 milligrams of aerosolized diphenhydramine delivered with two parts oxygen via simple face mask at a flow rate of 15 liters of per minute. Integumentary reaction occurred within five seconds of contact. Evidence of urticaria with initial dosage, progressed to blistering and epistasis after prolonged interaction. Additional physical reaction delayed until approximately 34 seconds after delivery, subject refused to inhale. Once inhalation occurred, subject exhibited exaggerated hyperthermia, tachypnea, miosis, and periodic episodes of myoclonus. As exhibited in other exposures, veins protruded prominently with a bright green hue. Strongest color emanated from the origin point. Symptoms progressed to junctional tachycardia, nystagmus, and abnormal posturing. Culminated in generalized tonic-clonic seizures. Subject became unresponsive 14 minutes and 53 seconds after initial exposure._

 _Aerosolization discontinued at this point._

 _Consciousness regained after 8 minutes and 9 seconds, during which time greenish hue dissipated and epistasis ceased after approx. 20 mL of drainage. Awakeness marked by a period of disorientation, muscle weakness, sharp onset of hypothermia, and generalized fatigue. Subject attempted to vomit, but due to fasting procedures, nothing of significance was produced._

 _Overall impression, subject was incapacitated in an effective means to subdue without physical restraint. However, risk increased because of biomedical hazard resulting from clean up. Consider increasing dosage or adding an additional amphetamine as a catalyst to speed up reaction process. Should be successful as a deterrent. However, not a sustainable method as a regular chemical restraint if subject is to remain productive. Consider alternative forms of delivery, instead inhalation or proximation, possibly intravenous delivery. Variety of dosages should be created to produce desire effect on subject._

 _Subject will be monitored for two hours to observe for any additional side effects._

 _Physician's signature: Silas Stone_

There's a picture in the top right corner. A file photo, almost a mugshot, of Kara.

There's no mask yet. No pins. No ports from what she can see.

The date scrawled in idiosyncratic shorthand indicated that the photo was taken seven years ago.

Kara would have been what- fourteen? Fifteen? The girl in the photo is caught physically between cherubic youthfulness and gangly adolescence, her arms, skinny and matchstick thin, disappearing into oversized scrubs, the softness of her features hiding behind long, greasy hair, and her eyes… she looks like she's about to cry. Like she's terrified.

And Jesus Christ, she was only a kid.

Only a-

"Thermo-regulative vocal association." Lucy drawls out slowly, interrupting her anger, like it's a question instead of the statement she's framing it as.

Maggie's eyes clear a little. Just enough to adjust away from the clinical details on the stat-pad cradled in her hands to where Lucy sits cross-legged adjacent to her in the dining room, notes spread around her in such as careful disarray that it seemed neat and messy at the same time.

In the time they've had since Kara had gone down for the count, they've turned back to the case file with feverish intent.

J'onn was somewhere combing through the blonde's psychiatric history, Maggie had been regulated to medical documentation, and Lucy, she was rooting through just about everything else. And for fleeting moments Maggie wishes she'd been assigned to something else. It had been far easier to just skim over the copious quantities of information like she had on the drive up or zero in on the pertinent information to solve a problem like she had yesterday with the mask. And God how had that only been yesterday?

Now it feels like she's just reading, with no endpoint in mind besides knowing. It feels horribly invasive. Knowing the grotesque little details of what CADMUS had done to a child because Kara had only been nothing more than a gangly teenager in those early years. Knowing how they sheared away at the shy, youthful girl in Alex's childhood photos like she was an object, instead of a person. Knowing how purposeful everything was.

It's disgusting.

It's horrific.

The sheer deliberateness of it all.

And judging by the length of the medical history she had yet to read, the creation of synthetic kryptonite had doomed Kara from the start.

Which is why Maggie forces herself to look up at Lucy's mumbled utterance, even when she's not actually addressing Maggie, because unlike J'onn who'd been silent and methodical when he became immersed in a topic, the DEO protégé tended to think out loud, repeating things as if affirming them to herself.

"What?"

Lucy's dark eyes flick up toward her.

"Thermo-regulative vocal association," she repeats and Maggie watches as she highlights the words on the stat-pad with tip of her finger. "It's been mentioned six times so far. I'm adding it to the list."

Maggie nods slowly.

"Seven times," she mumbles, drumming her fingers against the table. "It was mentioned in the surgical report too. Something about how they didn't know how it would be affected with the mask."

It's the fifth ability that they have some record of.

Enhanced strength, amplified healing, flight, extreme durability… and now thermo-regulative vocal association.

Jesus Christ.

"Doesn't matter now does it?" Lucy mutters, wincing as she shifts in the chair. "The mask is gone."

Maggie has no idea where the mask is now.

Last, she'd seen of it was when Vasquez had been washing it off. The blood and bile had gone away easily. The bone fragments attached to the interfaces, where Kara had literally torn it off her face, had not.

Just thinking about it, wells up the nausea that she had so carefully contained within her and she has to swallow to stifle the burgeoning feeling and shove it back underneath.

"It is…" Maggie echoes, then to force the image out of her mind, "Have you heard anything from Sam?"

Contact between the two defacto teams had been kept minimal in the interest of keeping things off the grid, so she wasn't particularly worried about the stagnant communication between them, but it still bothered her, that the rest of her team was far away. She'd only received three updates from the Beta team: the faux message about debrief, a confirmation of reaching the safe house, and the influx of case file information from Winn.

"Not much." Lucy mutters, carefully neutral. "J'onn still wants to hold off on them coming up a bit. Considering how uncomfortable Kara is around him, he thinks it would be inadvisable to add a bunch of boys to the mix."

The brunette quirks an eyebrow at how purposefully blasé Lucy seems about the situation.

"What did Sam think about that?"

The younger Lane's line of sight skirts away from the pages, amber gaze meeting her eyes, as she shrugs.

"It doesn't matter what he thinks about it, it isn't his call. He understands the logic behind it though, but you know him… antsy as hell."

She nods, as Lucy continues. She gets the underlying feeling Sam wouldn't have been able to brush off Lucy being slammed into a wall as easily as the DEO protege had.

"Last I heard, they'll be heading up here in two days, at least she's getting some sleep before then."

Maggie clenches her jaw, tension tightening somewhere above her as she spares a glance at the three women sitting in the living room. Vasquez is crouched by Alex whispering something that the other woman nods too as she sits cross legged next to her sister, who, if it hadn't been for the steady rise and fall of her shoulders, seemed more dead than alive.

They've arrived at the conclusion that Kara slept in intervals. Working herself to the point of exhaustion, until she could do nothing, but sleep, until she somehow jolted herself awake minutes later. No hint of hidden emotion that usually fluttered to the surface at rest, ever showed in her expression. No twitch of the brow. No nightmares.

Just stillness. Just a lifelong way of coping in world.

And it really doesn't surprise Maggie.

The implications of that.

Not with her lengthy, detailed case history, filling in sketches and allusions and educated guesses and painting a depressing picture of the last few years.

Maggie had figured out young, spurred on in oppressive memories and boundless life experiences, that there was a perverse cruelty hidden within some people that could be artfully disguised behind conventional guises. A brutishness that barely contained itself behind frank words, dirty looks and passive aggressiveness from people that could be neighbors, coworkers, or passerbys on the street.

Festering. Brewing. Until those people are given a little taste of power and what was hidden all along crawls out, slimy and sludging, staining everything it touches. Satisfying their own gruesome desires all the while forming neat little rationalizations to satisfy their decaying conscience as it destroys, destroys, destroys…

Her father had been one of those people.

So, Maggie can see and has seen more of what obscenities humans are willing to inflict on each other than she really cares to think about. And knows too well, that when the humanity is sucked out of it, when the victims aren't human, the justifications come that much easier.

"Take a break if you need too." Lucy says more than asks, following her line of sight, and when Maggie turns toward back to her in confusion, the other woman repeats herself. "Take a break. The stuff in here is shitty. I know that, you know that. Take a breather."

Maggie scoffs.

"I already took a break from helping Alex with Kara. This _is_ supposed to be my breather."

Lucy blinks at her, unphased by her snappish rebuke.

"So, take a break from your breather. I don't care. You're following the rabbit, nothing good comes from that."

Maggie shoots her a half-hearted glare, but Lucy only pats her hand against the table, gesturing for her to put the stat-pad down.

"Five minutes," she acquiesces, closing the screen of the stat-pad, blinking ferociously as the images fade from the edges of her eyes.

…. …. …

"They're not even telling me what's happening! Why on earth do I have people coming into my house in the middle of the night? Whisking me away into the darkness like I'm some sort of vagabond! I told you not to take that dangerous job! I-"

Eliza Danvers is a tall, lithe woman with the long silvery, blonde hair of someone who's become accustomed to stress and the wizened eyes of someone who used to laugh a lot but doesn't anymore. Her worn hands, currently wringing themselves of anything that could possibly in them, are one of Midvale's most precious assets, as one of its only remaining physicians. And like many physicians, when she spoke, though tampered slightly by an undercurrent of anxiety, she tended to commandeer the conversation.

Since the video call had started on the holo-panel of the stat pad, neither she nor Alex had gotten a single word in.

For as smart as Eliza Danvers was, she was also very nervous.

Maggie would never try to reconcile what it was like for a mother to lose both a daughter, then a husband, in such a short period of time. She knows what grief does to people. She knows how people surrender to their vices.

Alex's had been alcohol.

Eliza's was control.

Even before… everything, Alex had said, it had always been control.

Micromanaging everything. Scrutinizing everything. Putting things to an impossibly high standard.

Maggie knows on some level it's maternal instinct, that Eliza doesn't want to lose her last child.

But she's also seen the way it affected…. The way it still affects Alex.

That Eliza is a lot of the reason her wife is always eager to take blame for things out of her control.

And sees it, in the way Alex's hands tremble against the table, even as she squares her shoulders.

"Mom."

Alex murmurs lowly, voice wavering as Maggie covers her wife's shaking hand with her own.

Eliza either doesn't hear her or ignores her entirely.

And as the elder Danvers continues to ramble, Maggie skirts to the background of the video stream. Gone are the soft, pastel blues and greens of the Midvale kitchen adorned with the photos of childhood, replaced with the sterile, neutral colors that are reminiscent of the room she and Alex are in now.

A safe house.

J'onn had been making calls at all hours of the night.

One of them had been to a Cameron Chase. Ex-DEO, ex-CIA, pretty much ex-everything, and Maggie was unsure of how that spoke positively to Chase's reputation, but J'onn had claimed that she was particularly adept at making people disappear and that she could be trusted. Because though CADMUS had been generous in leaving Eliza Danvers unharmed in the years prior, it was certainly only a matter of time until CADMUS cast their net back towards their asset's origins, when they discovered their jackpot was missing.

"Mom!"

Alex repeats, louder this time, jerking Maggie out of her thoughts and Eliza out of her rant.

The older women stops, mouth opening then closing without saying a word, then her brows stitch together much like Alex's did when a realization was being made and like Kara's did earlier.

"Alex?" the eldest Danvers starts, voice lowering a fraction, becoming something softer than it was before. "Alex, what's wrong? Are you hurt?"

Alex doesn't answer, looking past the computer to the edges of the coffee table where Kara is.

The blonde's shoulders curl inward, one arm pulling her knees against her torso, the other outstretched with a trembling hand to play with a plastic spoon, replicating that same goddamn position that had been a source of comfort since being released form that god-awful harness, even if it looked distinctly uncomfortable now.

In front of her, there's a careful array of apple sauce cups. Ten… no eleven of them. Each positioned carefully with the little plastic spoons that came with them perched on top. Exactly the way Maggie had absentmindedly arranged them the day before. So far, Kara had been eating everything that had been put in front of her, mostly bland foods like oatmeal until they could be sure her stomach could handle it.

The apple sauce had been a clear favorite, even if Kara hadn't said so. She hadn't said much since last night.

"Maggie." Eliza asks, turning her attention towards her. "Did something happen?"

Maggie opens her mouth, then closes it… because it really isn't her story to tell.

"I… I think…" she starts slowly, deliberately. "that Alex should be the one to tell you."

At the mention of her name, Alex jerks her attention back to the video screen, eyes already misting with tears. She tries to whisper something, but no sound issues forth when she does, and her amber eyes jerk towards Maggie, whirling with a frantic desperation, the remnants of panic, the echoes of grief, and so many other emotions.

Maggie tightens her grip, rubbing a circle on the back of her hand, because Alex needs the grounding movement to continue, and who would she be to not give it to her. Slowly, the taller brunette's grip solidifies against her own and she's forcing herself back towards the screen.

"Uh… Maggie's team. They- they found her." Her wife whispers unevenly, spitting the words out as if it's something she can't get rid of fast enough. "They f-found Kara and now she's here."

There's silence on the end and, for a moment, Maggie thinks Eliza might be in shock, but then the elder woman fixes her daughter with a pitying look.

"Alex… we talked about this… Kara's dead." Eliza stumbles on Kara's name, but everything else is said with such sickening validation, that Maggie would have believed it if the woman in question wasn't less than a foot away. "You… you aren't drinking again are you?"

Any sympathy Maggie had for Eliza in that moment vanishes.

Alex's mouth closes, sealing like a vault as her chin trembles, but she doesn't say anything to her credit because Maggie has more than a couple of choice words she'd like to voice.

Instead, her wife reaches out and shifts the stat-pad further to the left, so her sister is in the frame.

The sudden movement shakes Kara out of her stupor, makes her coil tighter as she releases her fragile hold on the spoon, eyes snapping to Alex instead. And briefly, Maggie knows her mind was far away again because the blonde looks at them both with such a visceral confusion, before just as quickly unshuttering the lucidness that floods back to the surface.

There's a longer silence on the other end of the line as Alex draws a deep shuddering breath through her nose, eyes clenched shut, and it hurts Maggie to hear how hard she's trying not to cry.

"I… I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you, Kara."

Alex mumbles with forced calmness.

Kara doesn't say anything, relaxing back into her chair, but her eyes dart to the computer screen, where Eliza is sitting, and the elder Danvers face is pale as a sheet.

"Oh my God."

… …. ..

The call lasts twenty-five minutes.

Kara manages to string some words together, though she never manages to look quite at screen, the echoes of an emotion Maggie finally places as shame everywhere in her demeanor.

Alex is a ball of trembling emotion.

And Eliza never apologizes for what she says.

She never does.

… …. … …. ..

"Alex." Maggie murmurs, pulling her aside. "Are you good?"

They're in the hallway.

Vasquez had drifted in later, taken in the three of them sitting in silence, then looked pointedly at her and Alex and said, "Take a break, I'll stay here with Kara." She had held a deck of playing cards in her hand as she sat down across from the blonde, so Maggie had some idea of what she was planning. But Alex's eyes had been watery, and her jaw could have made coffee grounds from the way they were grinding together, so Maggie had looked at Kara who'd been looking at the medic, and when there had been no inclination that she was going to freak out if Alex disappeared from view, she pulled her wife away.

And now they're in the hallway.

And Alex is shaking.

"Mom is Mom."

She says in a wavering tone, looking sharply to the left to avoid meeting Maggie's eyes, trying to hide her tears.

"Hey!" Maggie starts, "She shouldn't have said that to you."

Alex bites her lip as she averts her eyes toward the floor.

"N-no. It's stupid to get so worked up over it, I mean I know what I was saying w-was- I know how it sounded-"

Maggie interjects, softly, but firmly because Alex would only spiral further if she let it continue.

"Alex, no it wasn't okay. It's never okay and it's not wrong to be upset about it."

Alex's voice catches on her breath and she shudders, digging her nails into her palms, tighter and tighter, until Maggie covers her hand with her own, rubbing circles against her clammy palms until she feels some of the tension Alex was stockpiling, slip away.

For the briefest of moments her wife stares down at their intertwined hands. Uncurling her other hand to fiddle with their matching rings, before uncurling the rest herself to look at Maggie, then without hesitation she leans into her. Alex is tall, taller than Maggie, and the position would have been awkward if they hadn't done this so many times before. So, she lets Alex lean into the crook of her neck, lets her relax, as she rubs her back.

"It's going to be okay." She whispers. "It will."

Alex mumbles something back, but it's undecipherable, any legibleness snuffed out by her shaking in the crook of Maggie's embrace.

"Hmmm?"

Alex pauses, and moves slightly, so Maggie can hear her when she repeats herself.

"I… I asked how you were doing?"

Maggie holds Alex tighter.

"Managing." She whispers. "Just like we all are."

…. … ..

"It's… It's not great." Vasquez starts reluctantly. "In the broadest umbrella terms, the hallmarks of PTSD are there. In the way she walks, how she sits, how she looks at everything. Even the way she's speaking. You've seen some of the shit they were doing in the files. It isn't really a surprise."

The pencil in the medic's hand flips effortlessly in between her fingers. Maggie had seen her do the same thing with a penlight, and once with an epi-pen, several times before. Enough to know it's something she does when she must ground herself and just happens to have something in her hands.

"Lucky for us, it seems to be learned behavior. The way she counts her exits, the way she's not directly talking to any of us, it's learned behavior. A defense mechanism. A well warranted one, but something that's going to be hard to unwire. This isn't shit that's going to disappear over days or weeks. I don't know how that's going to playout for our timeline, Sawyer."

Maggie steels her expression, trying to keep it purposefully impassive.

"You don't think she'll talk?"

She asks, because she understands dredging up trauma could always do more harm than good, and would never force the blonde, but a lot of this depended on affirming what had happened, if anyone of them wanted to see the light of day again.

"About what they made her do? I… I think she would if we got Alex to convince her, but interrogation wise, and I'm not saying we're going to interrogate her, I don't think… I don't think Kara is going to be a reliable witness. Cognitively, I mean."

The pencil flips again.

"Cognitively?"

But Maggie feels like she already knows the answer to the question she's asking.

"I know you've seen it. The ways she's zones out. It's like she's having trouble anchoring where she is." Vasquez murmurs. "She's not just scared. She's not just traumatized. She's actively disassociating."

The pen stops swirling between her fingers.

"And you don't think that's learned behavior?"

Vasquez shrugs.

"My working theory is that it's because of the god-awful cocktail of pharmaceuticals. I mean she was what, 13 or 14, when they started putting her on those things? I think that CADMUS had a kid Superman on their hands and they knew she was going to get stronger, but they also knew excessive sedative use wouldn't work if they wanted results. So, what do you do if you don't want to compromise strength, but still need to control them?"

The medic relays detachedly, eyes skirting back to her notes.

"You confuse them."

Maggie whispers.

Vasquez nods.

"If her physiology is anything similar to that of a human's, those are the developmental years, when connections are still forming. Massive amounts of high dosages of any drug can impair neural growth and CADMUS was throwing all sorts of shit at her. I mean LSD has no clinical applications for them to have been spoon feeding it the way the way they were!" Vasquez can't quite hide the bite in her tone this time, the pen flipping faster in her hands. "It seems like they were just playing with dosages, until they got something, in addition to all the other shit, that would keep her compliant, and Kara's mind just… developed around that. She concentrates enough to understand what people are saying and to follow instructions, but, any time she tries to focus on something for too long…"

Vasquez cuts off the rest of her words sharply, flipping the pen so that the tip burrows into the oak wood of the table surface to simulate the cut off.

"Jesus..."

Maggie murmurs under her breath. She doesn't know much about interconnectivity, not in humans, certainly not in aliens, but what Vasquez is saying reminds her of the early morning hours, and the immense difficulty it had taken for Kara to drag together enough of something to ask about Lois and the others, and how that moment of clarity hadn't lasted long.

"According to what I've seen of the files, CADMUS was purposely working her up to get to a point like that. It alludes to the problem being something medical, more physiological than psychiatric. We cut her off from those drugs since then, and there's been progress on the communication front because at least she's talking at us now, but as far as the disassociation goes…"

Vasquez says, still deep in thought.

"If it's an impairment, the sun might help it?" Maggie suggests, glancing out the window where the sun is peaking out behind the trees. "If we could get her outside, it could help."

It had already been confirmed that Kara wasn't a flight risk, that the blonde would likely not go anywhere without Alex at the very least in her periphery, but the extraction specialist knew it might take a bit of convincing for J'onn to let them out beyond these four walls.

"It's worth a shot." Vasquez shrugs. "On one hand, the sun allowed her to skip the entire withdrawal process, so maybe her mind might just needs some catching up, but I wouldn't get my hopes up. I'm going to see where we can get with other forms of communication, see if I can get her a pad of paper and a marker or something else that doesn't have a sharp tip…"

"She wouldn't hurt Alex."

Maggie says automatically, sensing the implication behind the medic's words.

"It's not Alex I'm worried about."

And that comment makes Maggie straighten.

"You're not saying-"

"I'm not saying that. I'm just saying she's been on precautions the entire time we've had her. Why do you think I gave you plastic spoons?"

… …

Maggie lurks just behind Vasquez as the field medic lays out her case to J'onn and Lucy, the silence stretching over long moments as the other duo absorbs what they're saying.

J'onn doesn't say anything at first, glasses rimmed eyes skimming back over the psychiatric case files. Neither does Lucy, who leans against the desk he sits at, arm's crossed, wariness everywhere in her stance. And it already seems that the writing for their plan is on the wall.

Then he is folding his reading glasses, the incandescent lamp casting yellowish light over his dark skin, as he places them slowly on the oakwood table. There's something regal and wise about him, even when he sits, as if he has hundreds of years of knowledge stockpiled in archives of memories and life's experiences.

"Her psychiatric history details several ailments that are of concern. Generalized anxiety, paranoid ideation, delusions, and that barely scratches the surface. And you are now telling me she is actively dissociating..."

The rest of his sentence trails off, waiting for a more compelling argument.

"She's not a flight risk."

Maggie says from behind Vasquez.

"It would be a safety risk."

J'onn rebuts and it isn't a direct no, but it sounds close to one.

"I agree."

Vasquez says passively, no inclination of an argument in her voice, and Maggie wonders what the endgame in that approach is because it certainly wasn't the game plan going in.

J'onn's gaze is heavy as he slowly inspects them, drawing some sort of conclusion from his examination, as he leans forward, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"How certain can you be that this psychosis is something medical and not psychiatric in origin?"

He asks.

"I'm not certain of anything. I'm a field medic, not a doctor, but I've seen addicts, people who have had their lives destroyed by drugs, people who can't tell their own two hands apart. You've seen more of the files than I have J'onn, I'd say most of the mental health issues listed in the case file aren't because she's actually insane, it's because they ran a teenager into the ground until they couldn't fix her because they didn't even try."

J'onn is contemplative, Lucy is a clenched fist with hair, but Vasquez doesn't falter.

"If she continues to dissociate, she continues to be unreliable witness, J'onn. We'll be here for years if we can't confirm anything without her checking out on us. If we're wrong, we're wrong, but not doing anything… She's a safety risk either way. You've seen what she can do. So, we owe it to her to at least try."

He sighs, but eventually, he nods.

"I trust your judgment."

Vasquez turns to Lucy, staring her down until she nods too.

"Keep us updated."

… …. … …

Kara lingers at first, only venturing far enough from the entrance to allow the sun's rays of light to cascade across the sharp edges of her worn features. Its warmth reflecting emptily off the blonde's dark eyes as she picks at the fraying edge of her sweatshirts, watching the birds that had retreated to the edges of the forested yard.

The aura of nervous energy she exudes is something she and Alex have quickly learned to expect, so, it isn't surprising, that Alex, sleeves of her own grey shirt rolled up past her elbows, doesn't push Kara to move further, only waits patiently, already on the grass, and neither does Maggie, watching off to the side, preferring to be the steadying presence, as she lets the warmth of the sun combat the cool breeze of the air conditioning that wafts out from the open screen door behind them. Somewhere, out further, she knows Lucy is around, likely tracking the perimeter, as J'onn had done in the previous nights, but for now it's just the three of them.

The blonde tips her head forward, away from the birds, and Maggie sees her gnaw the inside of her cheek before her hair is slicing shadows across it, obscuring it from view, wavering for a moment, before she finally convinces herself to step forward onto the grass.

Something akin to confusion flutters across Kara's distant eyes as she stares hard for a moment, then she's crouching on the ground, splaying her hands across the green blades, like a kid digging their hands in the sand.

"It's real."

Her voice wobbles.

"It's real."

Alex confirms softly.

Kara looks up at her sister with watery eyes, then frantically looks back down and her hands run through the grass again, before curling and yanking the blades out of the ground. She digs a little too deeply, an entire a hunk of dirt coming up with it.

Maggie blinks at the resulting hole in the ground but watches Kara stare forlornly at the green blades of grass as they flutter back to the dirt, and decides that Cat Grant of all people, has more than enough money for landscaping.

"It's real."

Kara whispers again, something changes when she says it this time, something tight and heavy, on the brink of tears.

"It… It can't be real."

Alex shoots Maggie a worried glance as Kara's words slur slightly in her bizarre denial, and for a moment, it seems like the blonde is going to follow up with something else, but she doesn't continue.

Her wife kneels down next to her sister and Maggie follows getting down on her level, not wanting to tower over her, but the blonde continues to ignore them both.

"What do you mean by that, Kara?"

Alex asks softly, instead of outright denying it, but Kara shies away, twitching suddenly and with a spastic, almost frantic movement, curls back into herself. Her hands tucking back against her chest, her shoulders trembling, but her line of sight never moves from the ground. Not even for a second.

"I'm not…"

And what ever sentence Kara begins to say is already disappearing before it finishes. Maggie sees her temple spasm, watches the skin around it contract as she concentrates, and imagines the crinkle of her brow that she can't quite see from this angle.

"I'm n-not allowed here."

It's hard following Kara's train of thought, but Alex continues nodding like her sister is just talking about the weather, instead of claiming that grass isn't allowed outside.

"Kara-"

Alex tries to interrupt, but the blonde is still mumbling to herself.

"I'm… not… n-not- allowed here-"

The younger girl shudders violently, squeezing her eyes shut as she rocks back on her heels.

"Kara, hey, it's okay… it's okay." Alex interrupts lowly, softly in a tone that Maggie has really only heard her use with her sister. "Who told you that?"

Kara moves her hands up to rub her temples, but she still won't look at them.

"They did."

Small and petulant and simple.

Like a child.

"Kara… They're not here."

The blonde shakes her head, hands pressing against her head tighter, tighter until her knuckles turn white.

"They said… They s-said it's not allowed."

Kara repeats robotically, and it sounds like those are someone else's words, and she's just repeating them, and Maggie supposed that isn't far off the mark.

"They told you that, Kara?"

Maggie asks softly.

The blonde nods once. Twice. Three times.

She and Alex share a look, and Maggie remembers the file, knows just how far CADMUS goes when making their rules. And it takes everything in her power not to reach out and touch Kara then, to comfort her, to do something besides stifle the anger in her throat.

"It's not allowed..."

Kara whispers again.

Alex shifts a little, so she's sitting instead of kneeling next to Kara.

"Kara, can you listen at me? Just for a second?" her wife starts, and when the blonde doesn't say anything, she continues. "You're allowed to be here. I… I don't know what they told you in there, but you're far away from them now. If you don't want to stay out here. You don't have to. We can turn around, go back inside, sit by the window. It's okay. Or you can stay out here, with the grass, with the birds. But it 's up to you. What do you want to do?"

The blonde shudders again, several shades paler despite the warmth of the sun, and Maggie thinks if Kara presses her hands any further against her head, she'll fracture her skull.

"It's… It's…

Kara whimpers, forcing out the words like they're burning her tongue.

"It's s-soft."

She stutters finally, fingers twitching to rub her knuckles, shifting back and forth again. And whatever she says next slips into a language Maggie doesn't recognize as she curls further into herself, chin tucking low against her chest, burying her forehead in her knees.

Alex expression draws together as Kara mumbles, confused for a split moment, before shifting into understanding, and Maggie realizes that whatever she's saying is likely Kryptonian, when she can't pick out anything even remotely rudimentary from any of the languages she's heard before, but Alex at least half-way understands.

"Yeah, it is soft isn't it?" Alex soothes, answering English when she can't find the right words to say in Kara's own language, and the blonde nods against her knees. "Is it okay to touch you?"

And its painful moments trying get a response out of Kara, who won't stop quaking in her spot, but eventually she jerks her head downward into a nod- like gesture. So, her wife, reaches out carefully, slowly and rests her hand on her sister's shoulder and Kara twitches again, as she shivers, even in the summer heat, but she doesn't jerk away.

"I know it's against their rules." Alex murmurs, moving her hand up to Kara's, trying to urge it away from her temple. "And I know you don't want to break them. So we can move back and sit next to the window, and we'll leave the door open, okay? That way you won't be breaking their rules and then you, Maggie, and I can make some new rules together, so the old ones won't count any more. Does that sound good?"

Kara nods feebly, letting her hand be guided away by Alex, and Maggie watches the color and shape rush back to the indents the blonde had made in her skull.

"Okay."

… ….

In the hours that pass, they come up with some basic rules that should never have to be made to begin with. It makes Maggie wishes that at least some of the CADMUS members had been left alive, so she could kill them all again.

… .. …

Her stat-pad vibrates just as the sun begins hiding behind the trees and if it were any other situation, Maggie would have had the half the mind to ignore it, but her stat-pad only vibrates for one thing now.

So, she excuses herself, peeling away from Alex and Kara, and retreats further into the living room to investigate further, a sense of foreboding sifting over the atmosphere.

And sure, enough it is Sam.

And he only sent one sentence.

 _Check the news._

All ominous and dark. And entirely lacking in information.

Jesus Christ, Sam, and his need to keep things entirely to vague.

Maggie flits her fingers over the device, pulling up the first news site that appears in the search bar, and she doesn't know what she's steeling herself for exactly, but if Sam felt the need to mention it…

Headlines begin to spring up from orangish-yellow light of the stat-pad, the Daily Planet logo twirling on it's 3-D landscape in the top left corner.

'Eve Tessmacher is expected to plead not guilty in CADMUS case-'

'President Baker to sign new executive order enforcing the alien removal act-'

'Breaking! Five members of National City Police Department's Counterterriosm Unit have been reported missing-"

Something cold like frigid fingers, chills her rushing blood, forming a vice grip around her chest, dragging her heart somewhere below her knees and she has to force a breath and slow down to read the headline again.

It doesn't change.

When she clicks the link to read further, small details pop up, staining themselves in her memory.

The date they'd gone missing. The commissioner's statement. Personal anecdotes from the squad. Their photos.

Sam's stern expression. Winn's youthful baby-face. Vasquez in her academy inform. Davidson's curly red hair.

Her.

The photos are old.

But they are high quality and unmistakable.

Shit.

….

Author Note:

Oof I can't write panic attacks, but I tried.

So this one was more to explain some things and set up for the next chapter, in which I further the actual plot, but I hope you liked it. Extra props to the peeps who can find the Easter eggs in this chapter and the last few. Someone already found out who Havok was! Let me know what you thought?

I'll try to get on a steady posting schedule but life is life is life.


End file.
